Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE COUNTY COUNCILS (RUNCORN-WIDNES BRIDGE, &c.) BILL [Lords]

DUDLEY CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

TENDRING HUNDRED WATER AND GAS BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Voluntary Recruitment

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for War the monthly rate of voluntary recruitment to the Army during the second quarter of 1947.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Freeman): Figures for June are not yet available. Approximate totals for April and May are 3,600 and 3,400 respectively. Quarterly figures are placed in the Vote Office by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence as they become available.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Could the Parliamentary Secretary give us the figures for the Territorial Army?

Mr. Freeman: Not without notice.

Regular Engagements

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for War the monthly rate of wastage of men on Regular engagements during the first six months of 1947.

Mr. J. Freeman: Approximately 600, Sir.

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for War the total number of men on normal Regular engagements in the Army at 31st March and 30th June, 1947, by comparison with 31st December, 1946.

Mr. J. Freeman: The approximate totals were at 31st December, 1946, 99,600, at 31st March, 1947, 103,100 and at 31st May, 1947, 108,100. Figures for 30th June, 1947, are not yet available.

Mr. Swingler: In view of this decline in the Regular content of the Armed Forces will my hon. Friend say whether he is satisfied with the present rate of recruitment, and whether consideration is being given to speeding up demobilisation in view of the reduction in the term of Service?

Mr. Freeman: The two issues are quite separate. I am not satisfied with the rate of recruitment, and will welcome my hon. Friend's help in increasing it. As to the Regular content of the Army I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the figures which I have given which show an increasing content.

War Injuries (Pensions and Allowances)

Mr. Attewell: asked the Secretary of State for War the number of men and women receiving pension or allowance under the Injuries in War Compensation Act, 1914; the scale of pension and allowances in operation; and the date of the last increase.

Mr. J. Freeman: As the answer is rather long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

Pensions are being paid by the War Department to one man and 18 widows under the scheme framed in accordance with the first Injuries in War (Compensation) Act, 1914, which provided for civilians who served afloat during the 1914–18 war. These pensions have been increased to bring them into line with the pensions payable to members of the Merchant Navy, or their dependants, in respect of death or injury during the recent war. The last increase was in 1946. Pensions are also being paid under two schemes framed by the Army Council


under the second Injuries in War Compensation Act, 1914, which provided for civilians employed on shore out of the United Kingdom. One scheme was based on the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, under which the maximum benefit is 35s. a week. Pensions are still in issue to 24 women and have not been increased since 1920. Two widows' pensions are still in issue under another scheme which is based on the Injury Warrant issued under the Superannuation Act, 1887. One pension is at £126 5s. a year and the other at £63 1s. a year. Neither has been increased since they were awarded. My right hon. Friend is exploring the possibility of removing the technical difficulties which have hitherto prevented increases being given to the pensioners under the second Act.

Detainee, Aden (Release)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for War the reason for the detention or imprisonment of Haji Farah Omer at Karasam Island, Aden Colony; and whether he has considered the representations made by the League of Somali People on behalf of this man.

Mr. J. Freeman: During the occupation of British Somaliland, Haji Farah Omer was accorded special privileges by the enemy and broadcast anti-British propaganda. From his activities he was known to the British military authorities as an enemy agent, and on the re-occupation of the Protectorate by our Forces he was detained in the interests of public safety and defence. He was released in 1945 and is now at liberty in Aden.

Mr. Sorensen: Can the Minister answer the latter part of the Question?

Mr. Freeman: On that point I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which was given recently, although I have not the date with me, to my hon. Friend the Member for East Harrow (Mr. Skinnard).

Water Conveyance, Dungeness

Mr. E. P. Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War what is the annual cost of sending an Army water wagon daily from Shorncliffe to Dungeness, a distance of some miles, in order to load with water from the Dungeness mains and deliver it a few hundred yards to the insanitary tanks set up in the fishing village of Dungeness to supply those inhabitants de-

prived of their access to wells arising from oil pollution caused by the bursting of the Pluto pipes; and whether he will give an assurance that his promise of a year ago to the hon. Member for Ashford to supply these people with main water will be implemented during the lifetime of the present Parliament.

Mr. J. Freeman: As regards the first part of the Question the annual cost is approximately £500. As regards the second, my Department has done everything possible to help, but the work which is being undertaken by the water company is held up owing to circumstances which neither I nor they can control.

Mr. Smith: In view of the difficulties which have been encountered by the present Secretary of State for War and his predecessors in office in solving this complicated problem, would the Financial Secretary give an undertaking that this shall be placed very high on the first agenda of the new National Planning Council?

Mr. Freeman: I do not know whether that would be the proper way of solving this particular problem but I am sympathetic and I know the position well. The difficulty now is simply the provision of lead piping for the water and I think that is being obtained as quickly as possible.

Mr. Bossom: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether there are any other cases of inexcusable waste similar to this?

Mr. Freeman: I neither accept the implication in that question nor can I make any statement on it.

Mr. Smith: In view of the extraordinary reply of the hon. Gentleman I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Bandsmen (Pay)

Mr. George Wallace: asked the Secretary of State for War if it is intended to extend to Army musicians settled trade rates of pay.

Mr. J. Freeman: Under the new pay code there are no special trade rates. Bandsmen below the rank of sergeant, however, in common with other soldiers are assessed for pay under the Star system which takes account of their competence as bandsmen. Sergeants and above receive the pay of their rank.

Mr. Wallace: Is my hon. Friend aware that the system of band money has caused some trouble with the rankers and that he might obtain greater harmony if it were modified or abolished?

Mr. Freeman: I am not quite sure as to my hon. Friend's point, but I think it probably refers to a problem which we have already solved. However, if he will give me more information, I will look into the matter.

General Sir George Jeffreys: Will the Financial Secretary bear in mind that these Army bandsmen arc, in the first place, soldiers, and that their conditions of service and pay should not be interfered with by any outside organisation?

Mr. Freeman: Yes, Sir.

Forces, Middle East (Headquarters)

Mr. Bossom: asked the Secretary of State for War if he has made arrangements for constructing the new Middle East G.H.Q. that will be required now that the final date for leaving Egypt is agreed; what is the estimated cost; and when is the actual work to begin.

Mr. J. Freeman: The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, which remains in force, provides for the stationing of a certain number of British troops in Egypt. It is therefore incorrect to say that a final date for leaving Egypt has been decided upon, and the second part of the Question does not arise.

Mr. Bossom: Is the Financial Secretary aware of the terrific time taken to construct anything in that part of the world, and may I urge him to give this matter further consideration because it would be very serious if there were no headquarters when the time came?

Mr. Freeman: Nobody is better aware of that difficulty than I am, but the answer I have given is really the only one open to me at the moment and we are standing on the 1936 Treaty.

Earl Winterton: Will the Financial Secretary make it clear that we are in no great hurry to construct anything?

Study Courses

Mr. Symonds: asked the Secretary, of State for War if he will state, for each of the war years, how many Service men

and women began, under his Department's auspices, courses of study with correspondence colleges; how many completed such courses; and how many were successful in passing an examination at the conclusion of a course.

Mr. J. Freeman: As the reply contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Symonds: Can my hon. Friend say now if there is any noticeable difference between the number of courses started and those completed, and, if so, whether that difference is due to any other reason than the obvious exigencies of the Service?

Mr. Freeman: When my hon. Friend reads the reply he will see that I have not been able to furnish him with the figures of the courses completed, but in very general terms I would say that they are no more remarkable than those found in civilian life in any other correspondence: course.

Following is the reply:

The War Office correspondence course scheme provides courses for the personnel of all three Services. Total enrolments for all types of courses under this scheme from its inception late in 1940 to 30th June, 1947, have been as follow:

1941 and 1942
…
48,197


1943
…
36,773


1944
…
81,822


1945
…
69,647


1946
…
26,705


1947 (to 30th June)
…
10,213



273,357

Owing to the frequent movements of personnel during and since the war, and the very large numbers involved, it has not been practicable to maintain records of the numbers of completed courses or of the numbers who have passed examinations at the conclusion of such courses.

Chief of Imperial General Staff (Overseas Tour)

Wing-Commander Millington: asked the Secretary of State for War what is the purpose and cost of the present trip abroad of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Bellenger): The Chief of the Imperial


General Staff has undertaken this tour at the request of His Majesty's Government and on the invitations of the Governments of Australia and New Zealand. Its purpose is to enable him to inform himself at first hand of conditions and problems in Australia, New Zealand and the Far East, and to discuss some aspects of defence matters of mutual interest, and particularly those affecting the Army, with Australian and New Zealand Ministers and Army Staffs. On his way out he has taken the opportunity of visiting the Viceroy in India and of seeing British troops and studying local problems in Malaya. After leaving New Zealand he will stay for a few days as the guest of General MacArthur, Supreme Commander Allied Forces in the Pacific, and will see something of the British troops in Japan. I am informed that the expenditure on petrol, oil and maintenance in connection with the flight would be about £10,000.

Wing-Commander Millington: Whilst nobody would disagree with the desire of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff to inform himself on imperial and world problems, may I ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that there is considerable concern at the fact that our chief soldier spends much of his time—and it would appear most of his time—discussing past history in all corners of the world instead of spending his time running the War Office in this country?

Mr. Bellenger: His presence at the War Office is not entirely necessary to run the War Office as a Department. I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that the purpose of his visit is one which His Majesty's Government have approved, and that I am entirely satisfied that he is doing useful work.

Mr. Eden: Is it not part of the duty of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff to see our troops overseas, where many of them are carrying out duties of an onerous character? Would not the House therefore welcome the discharge of that duty?

Earl Winterton: Would the right hon. Gentleman make it clear that when a soldier proceeds abroad upon the Orders of His Majesty's Government he will be protected in this House from sneers and derisive comments?

Sir Ralph Glyn: Is it not incumbent upon the holder of the office of Chief of the imperial General Staff to tour the Empire and to consult with the Dominions?

Mr. Bellenger: Yes, Sir, certainly, and in any case he gets the approval of the Secretary of State for War before he goes.

Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: As the Chief of the Imperial General Staff does not run the War Office, and as the Secretary of State does not appear to do so either, who does?

Mr. Bellenger: I can only assume that the hon. Gentleman is lacking in military knowledge. Otherwise, he would not say that about the Secretary of State for War.

Sir William Darling: Is the right hon Gentleman aware that the flight costing £10,000 could have been done for £6,000 by private enterprise?

Mr. Bellenger: I have taken the precaution before giving this answer to see what the flight would have cost by private enterprise. It would have cost much more.

Major Legge-Bourke: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the desires of the Commonwealth will be considered before the desires of the Commonwealth Party of Chelmsford?

Compassionate Leave

Mr. Stephen: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that the decision to restrict compassionate leave to soldiers to cases where it is a question of the death, imminent death or dangerous illness of a wife, child or parent of the soldier, often causes great distress to a family in cases of the dangerous illness of a brother or sister of the soldier when such leave is refused; and whether he will take steps to extend the provision for compassionate leave in such cases when supported by medical certificates.

Mr. Bellenger: Recommendations for compassionate leave in cases of dangerous illness or imminent death have necessarily been restricted generally to the relationships of parent, wife or child. This restriction was essential owing to the number of cases which would be involved if the concession were extended to embrace a larger category. Exceptional cases, however, merit and receive exceptional


consideration, and the concession is extended outside these three relationships in the case of next-of-kin or a twin, or if medical evidence is submitted that the recovery of the sick person would be materially assisted by the presence of the soldier.

Mr. Stephen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the widespread feeling that in exceptional cases the War Office is taking an unnecessarily hard line?

Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir. In the overseas Commands the question of priority is decided by an all-ranks committee. I am satisfied that, on the whole, it works satisfactorily.

Mr. Sparks: In cases where death may not be imminent but is, nevertheless, certain in a period of six months or so, as in a case of cancer, is it not possible for my right hon. Friend to arrange for compassionate posting for men stationed overseas? I understand that continued compassionate leave is not acceptable.

Mr. Bellenger: The general policy now is not to make compassionate postings but to grant compassionate release.

Squadron-Leader Fleming: Where the mother's medical certificate states that it is advisable that the soldier should be brought home, will the right hon. Gentleman advise the people overseas to take notice of the medical certificate?

Mr. Bellenger: The Question does not deal with cases relating to mothers but with less close relationships.

Squadron-Leader Fleming: The right hon. Gentleman has suggested that the Question does not apply to mothers, but does it not refer to the parent of the soldier?

Mr. Bellenger: If the hon. and gallant Member will read the Question he will see that it relates to a brother or sister.

Requistioned House, St. Albans

Mr. Dumpleton: asked the Secretary of State for War when the hon. Member for St. Albans may expect a reply to his letter about the release of premises at Sandridgebury, St. Albans, which are urgently required for educational purposes.

Mr. Bellenger: A reply was sent to my hon. Friend on 10th July.

Mr. Dumpleton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that reply, which came after this Question was put down, was very unsatisfactory? Is he further aware that these premises are occuplied by only a few A.T.S. but, on the understanding that they would be released in June the school took a lease of these premises, and has to be out of its existing premises by September? The delay is holding up the continuance of the work of the school.

Mr. Bellenger: In answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's Question, I have gathered that he was not satisfied with the answer to which I referred. In answer to the second part, I would say that even if we derequisitioned this house, which has 22 rooms, we should have to offer it to other Government Departments.

Mr. Dumpleton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of his officers indicated that other Government Departments have already said that they do not want the house? Can he also say when the War Office is going to realise that the war is finished and that they must not take priority over civilian needs?

Mr. Bellenger: I do my best to get these houses, large and small, derequisitioned, and have met with considerable success in that respect but we cannot get out of this house yet—it is fairly fully occupied. I could give the figures if necessary. I will, however, do my best to see that it is derequisitioned as soon as possible.

Personnel, Channel Islands (Compensation)

Mr. Richard Law: asked the Secretary of State for War, when it is intended that compensation shall be paid to serving officers for loss of furniture and effects due to the German occupation of the Channel Islands.

Mr. Bellenger: No decision has yet been reached on the question of the compensation of officers and other ranks for the loss of furniture and effects in territories occupied by the enemy. Most of the claims relate to the Far East where a Claims Commission is investigating the general question of war damage. The


claims in respect of the Channel Islands cannot be considered in advance of a decision on the general question.

Mr. Law: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that civilan claims for damages suffered by the occupation of the Channel Islands are already being met? Can he say without having had notice of the question how long it is since the Germans evacuated the Channel Islands and how much longer it will be before all this compromising and agreeing to arrangements between the parties will go on before the result will be reached?

Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir, not offhand. I should like to get this question settled. These cases affect members of the Army. I was not aware that civilian claims had been settled, although I was aware that some payments had been made on account. I will do my best, in conjunction with other Departments, to get the matter settled as soon as possiible.

Mr. Law: May I ask whether the Secretary of State realises that really serious hardship is being caused to these officers who have in some cases lost all their effects and have to live in the meantime and have no compensation whatever?

Mr. Bellenger: In those cases grants can be made on account.

Mr. Collins: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the case of civilian claims in the Channel Islands, compensation can only be paid, even when claims are admitted, if the civilian goes back to the Channel Islands and rehabilitates himself there? To what extent will that ruling affect serving officers or other ranks in the Army at the present time? If that applies, it means that they could not get anything at all until they rehabilitated themselves in the Channel Islands?

Mr. Bellenger: I do not think that rule would apply to members of the British Army.

Illegitimate Children (Germany and Austria)

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: asked the Secretary of State for War what steps he is taking to bring home to members of the occupation forces in Germany and Austria the serious nature of their responsibilities in those cases where they have had children by women in those countries;

and whether he will make such arrangements as will secure that the men concerned are not allowed by their carelessness and indifference to add to the destitution and misery already existing in Europe.

Mr. Bellenger: I am anxious, and take all possible steps to ensure, that British soldiers should understand their responsibilities in this respect, but the matter is one which cannot be dealt with by disciplinary action.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is the policy of his Department to give every help to interested parties in assisting them to trace men in this country who are alleged to be the fathers, of illegitimate children born in Germany or Austria?

Mr. Bellenger: The unfortunate thing is that the identification of the father is sometimes very difficult. I am afraid I cannot take on that extra responsibility.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is easier to establish paternity by refusing help to these people?

Mr. Bellenger: I would point out to my hon. Friend that it is not my fault that nothing can be done and that I cannot take disciplinary action. It all depends on the legal authority. I have had that power in relation to cases like this in this country but not in Germany.

Cadets

Sir Ralph Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for War if he will give the total number of cadets now in the United Kingdom and indicate what are the training facilities provided for cadet instruction in the construction and handling of tanks, armoured cars and other specialised branches of the Army.

Mr. Bellenger: As the answer is rather long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The total number of cadets in the Senior and Junior Training Corps and the Army Cadet Force is approximately 156,000. The Army has issued a considerable amount of equipment to stimulate interest among cadets in technical subjects, and offers a Certificate "T" to those cadets who qualify themselves in


certain trades. There are a large number of Signal Sections, with wireless sets and signal equipment, in units of the Junior Training Corps and Army Cadet Force. Local authorities, in addition, co-operate in some places by providing instructors and equipment for classes of cadets.

There is not time for a boy at school or at work to undertake a serious study of so complicated a subject as the construction and handling of tanks. The interest of cadets in such matters is, however, met by offering them demonstrations by arms such as the Royal Armoured Corps, Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, while at annual camp, and at other times where this is practicable. Most Senior Training Corps have specialist units such as Royal Armoured Corps, Royal Artillery and Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. These specialist units are provided with the necessary equipment to enable training to be carried out.

Personal Case

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for War why in the case of a soldier killed while in a state of desertion, particulars of whose case have been communicated to him, sums due in respect of pay and allowances earned prior to desertion have not been paid to the next-of-kin although one year has elapsed since the death.

Mr. Bellenger: Payment has been refused in accordance with past practice under the Regimental Debts Act, 1893, and regulations made thereunder in regard to the balance of men dying in a state of desertion. I am looking further into the applicability of the rules in this particular case.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Will the right bon. Gentleman, in looking further into that case, bear in mind the fact that the man concerned was never tried by court-martial, having been shot dead while in the state of desertion by a military policeman? In the circumstances, is it not right to pay over the accumulations of pay to the man's widowed mother?

Mr. Bellenger: Generally speaking, I am inclined to agree with that point of view, and I am now looking into the case.

Venereal Disease (Incidence)

Mr. Wilson Harris: asked the Secretary of State for War what was the in-

cidence of venereal disease in the British Army in Britain in 1938; what it is in the British Army in Britain today; and in the British Army of Occupation in Germany today.

Mr. Bellenger: the annual rate per 1,000 troops in the British Army in Britain recorded during 1938 was 11.7. In 1946 the annual rate per 1,000 troops in Britain was 32.8 and in B.A.O.R. 158.6. The quarterly rate for the first quarter of 1947 was 5.3 per 1,000 in Britain and 30 per 1,000 in B.A.O.R. This is slightly lower than for the corresponding quarter of 1946 in Britain but approximately the same in B.A.O.R.

Mr. Wilson Harris: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it right that boys of 18 and 19 should be sent to Germany in the conditions shown to be prevailing there? What steps is he taking or can he take to avoid this happening?

Mr. Bellenger: In answer to the first part of the question, I have no option as long as we have to maintain military occupation in Germany. As regards the second part of the Question, I am taking all possible steps, and so is the General Officer Commanding out there, to improve the morale of the troops; but I am bound to say that conclusions—and sometimes false conclusions—are drawn from these figures. In 1938 there was probably less recording of cases than there was in 1946, and modern medical practice, which treats the case much more quickly than it did in 1938, probably accounts in part for the apparently higher incidence of cases.

Mr. Wilson Harris: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the figures for 1947 speak for themselves quite irrespective of 1938?

Mr. Bellenger: I certainly deprecate these figures and I am taking all steps possible to improve them, but I ask the House not to draw too wide conclusions from the figures. We are never asked these questions about the civilian population.

R.M.A. Cricket Team (Indian Visit)

Brigadier Low: asked the Secretary of State for War whether it is intended to send a cricket team from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst to the


Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun, India, this winter, in return for the successful tour by the Indian Military Academy cadets in England this summer.

Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir, this is, unfortunately, not possible.

Brigadier Low: Would the right hon. Gentleman give this further consideration? Is it not desirable in the interests of friendship and co-operation between the Army of this country and the Armies of the future Dominions of India and Pakistan that visits such as these should be paid from time to time?

Mr. Bellenger: As the House knows, I used to take a great interest in cricket and I still do; but I regret to say that our cadets at Sandhurst have only 18 months in which to train and, therefore, it is not possible to go in for these cricket matches in other parts of the world.

Departmental Letters (Signatures)

Mr. Boyd - Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will see that members of His Majesty's Government holding appointments in his Department make a general practice of signing letters sent in reply to letters addressed to them by honourable Members of this House.

Mr. Bellenger: The number of letters addressed by hon. Members to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and myself is very large indeed. Nevertheless, both he and I endeavour to sign replies personally but it is physically impossible to sign each reply without detriment to the other important duties imposed on us.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the right hon. Gentleman telling the House that his Department has more correspondence than, for example, the Board of Trade, the Ministers of which are most punctilious in signing letters to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen?

Mr. Bellenger: I should think that that is quite possible—from Members of Parliament and not the general public.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: Is there any reason at all to suppose that the right hon. Gentleman and the Under-Secretary are receiving more letters than the War

Department did during the war? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the war we always had a courteous reply signed by the Minister concerned?

Mr. Bellenger: That question is entirely wrong, because I have had letters from the War Department signed by the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for War. I should say that since the war we have had more letters from Members of Parliament in the War Office than previously.

Mr. Keeling: Differing from my hon. Friend just below me, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that in the comparatively rare cases when he signs replies to hon. Members they are even more unsatisfactory than when they are signed by his Parliamentary Private Secretary?

Mr. Walker-Smith: May I ask the Secretary of State, particularly in view of his rather unfriendly disparagement of my military knowledge in regard to the War Office, to use his influence with some of his colleagues to persuade them not to send me letters addressed, "Dear Col."?

Mr. Bellenger: Yes, Sir. I regret this undue familiarity.

Vehicle Drivers (Fatigue)

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is satisfied that Army vehicles are not driven, save in the course of properly supervised training, by men suffering from lack of sleep; and what redress is afforded to the public in cases of accidents resulting from drivers suffering from excessive fatigue.

Mr. Bellenger: It is the duty of commanding officers to ensure that the operation of Army vehicles is properly supervised at all times, which includes ensuring that men are employed on driving duties only for reasonable periods. I have no reason to believe that this duty is not being generally carried out. A member of the public who is the victim of such an accident has the right to sue the driver and provided that he was on duty it is the practice of my Department to stand behind him and provide any funds which may be required by the settlement.

Major Legge-Bourke: Would the right hon Gentleman look into the circumstances of the case which happened at


Slough? Is he aware that in that case the jury returned a verdict of "misadventure" and added a rider that the driver was negligent owing to lack of sleep?

Mr. Bellenger: I am now looking into that.

Motor Vehicles, Germany

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for War if he will now make arrangements to hand over to the civil administration in Germany for German civilian use the motor vehicle parks on the Lubeck-Hamburg and Hamburg-Bremen autobahnen which, with other parks, contain approximately 100,000 vehicles, so that they may be saved from further deterioration and assist in reducing the transport shortage in Germany.

Mr. Bellenger: The approximate number of vehicles held on Army charge in vehicle parks in Germany is 77,000, and of this number some 6,000 are now in course of transfer to the surplus disposal authorities. The remaining 71,000 vehicles consist of both usable and repairable stocks which cannot be handed over to the civil administration. They are required to maintain the Army in the immediate years ahead as the export drive and the rehabilitation of home industry have necessitated the temporary suspension of new production vehicles for Army use. Arrangements are in hand to speed up the complete reconditioning of these vehicles, and are being made for their subsequent storage and preservation after overhaul.

Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are substantive reports available that show that at the end there will be more than 15,000 vehicles which have been completely scrapped for waste? Is it not possible for the Army to state precisely what they want over the next five or six years and to let the rest go for civilian services?

Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir, there will be none of these vehicles available for civilian purposes. We want all the serviceable vehicles we can get out of this stock, which is the only stock we can call upon in the next two or three years.

Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that at the present rate of overhaul it will take over eight years before all can be completely overhauled, and most of them will be rotting?

Mr. Bellenger: I would not agree with that. We are stepping up the repair of these vehicles.

Mr. Frank Byers: Will it not take more than two or three years to get down to the inspection and repair of vehicles at the end of the queue? Will the right hon. Gentleman look into this, as the vehicles are going to waste, and a considerable number will not be useful to anyone at all?

Mr. Bellenger: Yes, but they cannot be used by civilian authorities. [HON MEMBERS: "Why not?"] If we once let them go, we shall not have any call upon them for the British Army. We have already 55,000 released for disposal in Germany from Army stocks, and 20,000 in Holland and Belgium.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Will my right hon. Friend see that some of these cars are made available to British ex-Service men in this country?

Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir, I regret that that is not possible; most of these vehicles are not of that type.

Mr. Martin Lindsay: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that there is not, and has not been, any waste of these vehicles, and that they are not rotting away?

Mr. Bellenger: I could not give that categorical assurance. I should say that in all armies of the size we had in the war, there is bound to be waste. I regret it, but we are doing our best to avoid it.

Mr. Stokes: I beg to give notice that, owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I will raise this matter again.

Oral Answers to Questions — TERRITORIAL ARM

Training Areas

Mr. Sidney Shephard: asked the Secretary of State for War when it is proposed to provide training grounds and buildings for Territorial units.

Mr. J. Freeman: As far as possible, Territorial units will use the training areas allocated to the Regular Army. Where this is not practicable, arrangements will be made to provide sufficient training ground locally. Requirements for training areas for the Territorial Army not exceeding 50 acres which do not involve the use of live ammunition or tracked


vehicles will be discussed locally by Territorial Army Associations with local authorities in the near future. Renovation of existing Territorial Army Headquarters has been in hand since the reconstitution of the Territorial Army was announced. The scope of the work has had to be limited to essential repairs and redecoration so that labour and materials will not be diverted from the national housing programme. The extension of buildings in permanent construction has not yet been started, nor is it considered practicable to do so at the present time. In certain cases where additional accommodation is essential, temporary hutting is being provided. A large building programme is, however, envisaged for the Territorial Army as soon as conditions permit.

Mr. Shephard: is the hon. Gentleman aware that most territorial units are still without training grounds, particularly armoured units, and would he get into touch with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air to see whether some of the redundant aerodromes could not be handed over to these armoured units for training purposes?

Mr. Freeman: I am very well aware of the fact that we have great difficulties in this field, but I am advised that in fact we have adequate training grounds for what is needed at the present although, of course, they will be totally inadequate for what we shall need very soon. I am giving the matter every consideration.

Temporary Recruiting Centre, Barnet

Dr. Stephen Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for War on whose authority an A.A. gun and a T.A. recruiting centre were set up at the entrance to Hadley House, Barnet, on Saturday, 5th July, on the occasion of the holding there of a Conservative Party fête; if he is aware that members of the public assumed there was some connection between the two; and if he will take steps to see that the laudable object of T.A. recruiting is not prejudiced by being associated with less laudable activities.

Mr. Bellenger: The anti-aircraft gun and a Territorial Army recruiting centre were erected on the common opposite

Hadley House on the authority of the Commanding Officer in order to advertise the re-formation of his unit and its need for recruits. Although there was no reason why it should have been assumed that there was any connection with the fête, I am taking steps to ensure that nothing should be done which may create the impression that party gatherings are a suitable occasion to undertake the nonparty work of recruiting for the Territorial Army.

Dr. Taylor: May I take it then that the use of this gun will be reserved for a party which has no big guns of its own?

Mr. Keeling: Is the Secretary of State aware that this fête, attended by 10,000 people—which is more than the attendance at Labour meetings in Barnet in an entire year—was a splendid opportunity to get recruits for the Territorial Army? Is not the Question therefore a little petty?

Mr. Bellenger: I am very interested to hear that there was such a large gathering. I had now better look into my recruiting figures arising out of the meeting.

Wing-Commander Hulbert: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that every channel should be used to increase recruiting for the Territorial Army? Is he not aware that between the two wars only the Conservative Party encouraged recruiting?

Mr. Bellenger: I agree that we should utilise the help and ask for the assistance of all hon. Members and of all associations with which they are connected. I am certainly of the opinion, as I am sure all hon. Members are that it would be right to keep party politics out of this matter as much as possible.

Camps (Local Authority Employees)

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Secretary of State for War how many local authorities are refusing to grant facilities to their employees to attend annual training in T.A. camps or other auxiliary forces.

Mr. Bellenger: This information is not available at the War Office.

Major Legge-Bourke: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that various committees of the Edmonton Council apparently refused this?

Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir, out I am hoping that it will be possible soon for all local authorities and employers of labour, including the Government, to co-operate more than they are perhaps doing at the present moment.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Can the right hon. Gentleman take some steps to draw their attention to this urgent national problem?

Mr. Bellenger: We are about to do that or are in the process of doing so.

Staffs, London (Allowances)

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Secretary of State for War what are the actual lodging, London, and ration -allowances to warrant officers, noncommissioned officers and privates serving on the permanent staffs of Territorial units in London.

Mr. Bellenger: As the answer contains a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The daily rates of lodging, London, and ration allowance for men serving on the permanent staffs of Territorial Army units, as for other members of the Regular forces in London, are as follow:


Rank
Lodging Allowance
London Allowance
Ration Allowance



s.
d.
s.
d.
s.
d


Warrant Officer
5
0
1
9
3
2


Staff Sergeants and Sergeants.
3
6
1
3
3
2


Corporals and below
2
6
1
0
3
2

Oral Answers to Questions — POLES, UNITED KINGDOM

Forces (Demobilisation Date)

Mr. Geoffrey Cooper: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is now prepared to state a specified date for demobilisation of all Polish Forces in this country, after which all men in these forces will have to take up profitable employment in this country, or be in training for such work and the remainder repatriated.

Mr. J. Freeman: No, Sir, but His Majesty's Government are most anxious that all these Poles should return to Poland or failing that join the Polish

Resettlement Corps and take up productive work at the earliest possible moment. Members of the Polish Forces must not think that they can continue indefinitely to be paid and maintained in this country as members of those Forces.

Mr. Cooper: Does my hon. Friend realise that this decision is being shelved week after week, month after month, and are not the public of this country justified in expecting that a decision shall be taken, instead of paying out monthly £250,000 in pay indefinitely?

Air-Commodore Harvey: Will the hon. Gentleman say what is the time limit for these men to join the Resettlement Corps and will he go into this matter much more carefully and make a statement to the House at a future date so that we may understand what is to be the future of these men?

Mr. Freeman: Making a statement at a future date is one thing, but I do not think it would be advisable to put a precise term to it now. I would remind my hon. Friend that it was not the impression of the House that the decision was being shelved when my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made his statement recently.

Mr. Scollan: Is the Financial Secretary aware of the tremendous amount of indignation caused in Scotland by the fact that a large number of able-bodied men have been living there and doing nothing for the past 18 months?

Mr. Cooper: Can my hon. Friend make some definite statement now on this matter, since the public are becoming rather exasperated by this continual shelving of a decision which they feel should be taken?

Mr. Freeman: There is no continual shelving of a decision which should be taken. I have made a categorical statement of what we feel with regard to the future of these Poles. As regards the precise date by which it can be achieved, I think it would be unwise to say definitely.

Earl Winterton: Is it not the case that these men fought most gallantly for the Allies and thereby set an example to some?

Mr. H. D. Hughes: Can the hon. Gentleman say what sanction his Department has to make sure that when these men have joined the Resettlement Corps they are genuinely willing to take up suitable employment?

Mr. Freeman: With regard to that question they join the Resettlement Corps for that purpose, and they remain under military discipline while in it. With regard to the noble Lord's question it is, of course true that many of them did so serve.

Squadron-Leader Fleming: Would the hon. Gentleman tell us what is being done with those Poles who have refused to join the Resettlement Corps or to do any work?

Mr. Freeman: I suggest that the hon. and gallant Gentleman should read the statement by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on 10th June.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister aware—

Earl Winterton: Hear, hear. Three cheers for Moscow.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister aware that these gallant Allies are not being fairly treated by being kept in useless idleness as they are at present, and that their presence would be an advantage to their own country?

Mr. Skeffington-Ledge: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that it has been brought to the notice of each of these men that His Majesty's Government are of the opinion that his duty is, in each case, to return to Poland and to help in its reconstruction?

Mr. Freeman: I have looked into the matter personally, and I am completely satisfied that every one of these men has been made plainly aware of his responsibilities.

Air-Commodore Harvey: In view of the hon. Gentleman's most unsatisfactory reply and lack of knowledge on the subject, I beg to give notice that I propose to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Civil Convictions

Sir R. Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for War what action is taken in the case of Poles convicted of offences

in a civil court when their sentences are completed; and whether there is any intention of deporting these Poles, or of retaining them in disciplinary formations of the Polish Rehabilitation Corps.

Mr. Bellenger: All convictions of Poles by the civil courts are referred to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary who considers the deportation of the offenders in serious cases. There are no special disciplinary formations in the Polish Resettlement Corps.

Sir R. Glyn: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is possible to deport a man who has been convicted in this way and whether any recommendations for deportation can be carried out?

Mr. Bellenger: I should think so, Sir.

Mining Volunteers, Scotland

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that on 30th June, there were at Stirling miners' hostel 175 Poles, of whom, approximately 85 were in receipt of wages although doing no work; that at Falkirk miners' hostel similar conditions prevailed; and what is the reason for keeping these men in paid idleness when they are anxious to work and the need for additional labour in the mines is so great.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Ness Edwards): The agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers provides for local consultation with the Branches of the Union before Poles are introduced to any particular colliery. In a number of cases local difficulties have arisen and in consequence these local consultations are taking longer than anticipated. This has meant delay in some cases in starting Poles at work after preliminary training. I hope this is a temporary difficulty which will disappear as local misunderstandings are removed, in view of the urgent national need for increasing the manpower in the industry.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in this particular case these Poles have, I understand, been idle for many weeks, and look like being idle for many more weeks? Does the hon. Gentleman do anything more than make a statement, such as he has just made to the House?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I understand that the Poles in this case have been there for a fortnight. As the House is aware, there have been changes in the membership of the National Coal Board. I have asked for representatives of the Coal Board to get on this job immediately.

Mr. Butcher: How long is it since these men first volunteered for this work, and what amount of public funds have so far been expended in their maintenance and training?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I cannot say without notice. They only came from training centres a fortnight ago.

PRISONER-OF-WAR CAMPS (RATION SCALES)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for War whether a common nutritional standard exists for all prisoner-of-war camps in this country; and how frequently these camps are inspected in respect of the quality, quantity, variety and service of meals.

Mr. Bellenger: Yes, Sir. Ration scales are laid down which are applicable to all prisoner-of-war camps in this country. Each camp is inspected approximately every two and a half months by an officer from the War Office. Camps have messing committees on which prisoners of war are represented, and through which they can forward complaints and suggestions about their messing to the commandant.

Mr. Sorensen: Is my right hon. Friend aware that reports show that these camps vary considerably, and while some are up to a reasonable standard, others leave very much to be desired? In view of that, could not the inspection be carried out more reasonably and quickly?

Mr. Bellenger: I should say that, as in civilian restaurants, catering is bound to vary from establishment to establishment but I am satisfied that the standard throughout the prisoner-of-war camps is very good indeed.

Mr. Sorensen: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that to get the best work out of these men they must be reasonably well fed? But there are cases where the food is really insubstantial?

Mr. Bellenger: Will my hon. Friend let me have particulars of cases he has in mind, and I will look into them?

Mr. York: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that prisoners in agricultural camps are now working up to 10 o'clock at night? Does he think that the normal rations which are being given are adequate for that work?

Mr. Bellenger: I should think, looking at prisoners by and large, they seem a very healthy lot, and at any rate there is a special ration scale for prisoners who work.

ERITREA AND SOMALIA (ITALIAN OFFICIALS)

Mr. David Jones: asked the Secretary of State for War what steps are being taken to remove from the ex-Italian Colonies of Eritrea and Somalia, the Italian police, judges and other officials, since the surrender of the territory removes all obligation under international law to retain in office the former local officials.

Mr. Bellenger: It is true that the Italian surrender of rights and interests in her former colonies removes any obligation in International Law to retain former Italian local officials in office but until the Treaty of Peace with Italy is ratified by all the Governments concerned, His Majesty's Government is bound by the terms of the Hague Convention to maintain Italian law, and must, therefore, of necessity employ Italian officers to administer it. On the corning into force of this Treaty there still remains the obligation to continue as far as possible the existing Administrations in Eritrea and Somalia until the future of these colonies is determined by the agreement of the four Foreign Ministers. It will be necessary to retain a certain number of the former Italian judges and officials (many of whom have served the Military Administrations loyally since the Occupations) to enable the existing administrations to continue to function smoothly. Since 1945 Italian officials have, however, been returning to Italy and where possible, and as opportunity occurs, officials are being replaced by suitable non-Italian and indigenous personnel in the territories.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the loyal and devoted service which these officials nave given to the British military administration over several years, and not be unduly influenced by the narrow nationalism implied in the Question?

Oral Answers to Questions — TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

National Parks (Report)

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he is now in a position to make a definite statement about the publication of the Hobhouse Report relating to the establishment of national parks.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Fred Marshall): It is intended to publish the report on Friday, 18th July.

Agricultural Workers' Houses Penrith

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning, if he is aware that the programme for the provision of houses for agricultural workers in the Penrith rural district is being held up owing to objections from his Department; and if he will take steps to enable the Penrith Rural District Council to proceed with the erection of houses, no only in the small and large villages, but also in the vicinity of farms where at present no suitable accommodation for farmworkers is available.

Mr. F. Marshall: On 18th March this year, sites for 40 houses in the Penrith rural district were submitted to my Department for clearance. In approximately two months clearance had been given to the sites for 32 of these houses. More difficulty has been experienced in dealing with the remaining sites, but a meeting is about to be held in the region in an attempt to reach agreement on them. With regard to the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 18th March to the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Bossom), regarding the Government's general policy on the siting of houses for agricultural workers.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is a very scattered rural area and that skilled men are required near the farms where they

can work on the farms and look after the stock? Will he inform me whether his branch of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning bear in mind this matter, which is very vital to the farming industry?

Mr. Marshall: Yes, Sir. Some of the difficulties have arisen owing to the very laudable desire to provide sewerage for these cottages, but, in view of the site, I think we can waive that objection now.

New Town, Crawley (Community Officer)

Earl Winterton: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning, why, in view of the fact that there is an appeal in the courts against his decision to create a satellite town at Crawley, an advertisement has appeared in a northern journal advertising for a community officer for the satellite town of Crawley.

Mr. F. Marshall: The Crawley New Town Development Corporation and, at their instance, any officers appointed by them in present circumstances, clearly appreciate that such appointments cannot be confirmed, but must remain on a provisional basis until the issues raised by the action now before the High Court are disposed of. My right hon. Friend is in agreement with the corporation's policy in this regard.

Housing Site, Aveton Gifford

Brigadier Rayner: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning if he is yet in a position to give a date on which the village of Aveton Gifford. South Devon, will acquire a housing site, as this matter has been pending for many months.

Mr. F. Marshall: There were agricultural objections to the site originally proposed by the Rural District Council but, following discussions with the local authorities, agreement was reached on 29th April to a modified site. The revised plans, for which the Rural District Council were asked on 5th May, are not yet available, but our regional officers are in touch with the Rural District Council, and the site will be cleared as soon as the plans are ready.

Brigadier Rayner: Will the Minister remember that this small village lost 10 houses from enemy action and, therefore, was proportionately worse bombed than London? Will the Department do everything possible to help the Rural District Council get on with the job?

Mr. Marshall: I appreciate that there teas been some delay in this matter, due to the fact that we had agreed to a modified site, and delay of the Rural District Council in submitting plans, but we hope they will begin in a short time.

OLD AGE PENSIONS (OVERSEAS PAYMENTS)

Mr. Stanley Prescott: asked the Minister of National Insurance (1) how many old age pensioners have gone overseas within the last 12 months and have asked to have their pensions paid to them abroad; how many such pensions are, in fact, being paid; how many have been refused; and in respect of how many no decision has yet been taken;
(2) whether old age pensioners who proceed overseas to British possessions can have their pensions paid to them there if they previously notify his Department; and how many such applications have been received and how many are outstanding.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Steele): The Contributory Pensions Acts provide that pensioners outside the United Kingdom who are in His Majesty's dominions as defined in the Acts can, on application to my Department, have their pensions paid to them direct or to an agent in this country nominated by them. The Acts provide that a pension cannot be paid where a pensioner is in a foreign country. The number of old age pensions in payment outside the United Kingdom is 4,609. During the twelve months ending 30th June, 1947, 1,886 applications for payment were received from old age pensioners in or proceeding to His Majesty's dominions overseas; in 1,667 of these cases payment of the pensions is being made in the way requested by the pensioner; in the remaining 219 cases the necessary arrangements for payment are in hand. None has been refused. The number of old age pensioners who have gone to foreign countries is not available and could only be obtained by a scrutiny of the individual records of all contributory old age pensioners. The number of such persons is, however, very small.

Commander Noble: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that there are delays

of up to about five months in the payment of some of these pensions?

Mr. Steele: That is not my information. I understand that none of the 219 cases in which payment is still to be made has been waiting more than four weeks.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: In view of the importance of emigration, particularly of whole families, and the difficulty of arranging for the junior members only to go, ought not the Government to conclude comprehensive arrangements with the Dominions for the transfer of pension rights?

Mr. Steele: Such an arrangement does exist. A pensioner of this country can get his pension in those countries.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that there are cases of great hardship where the only surviving relative of an old age pensioner may have married a member of the Allied Forces and gone overseas, the old age pensioner being left behind, alone? Will my hon. Friend see if anything can be done to make it possible for pensioners in this category to join their only remaining relative overseas, and still enjoy their pension?

Mr. Steele: That is another question.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Building Operatives (Wages Claim)

Mr. Osborne: asked the Minister of Labour if he will make a statement on his conference with the employers' representatives concerning the building operatives' claim for a wage increase of 9d. per hour; and if the deadlock has been resolved.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I am in close touch with the parties but I should prefer not to make any statement at present.

Mr. Osborne: Without wishing to embarrass the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask him whether he will be able to make a statement shortly?

Mr. Isaacs: I am, in fact, meeting both parties on Thursday of this week. I hope that the result will be such as to enable me to make a statement.

Elderly Men

Mr. George Jeger: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the large number of unemployed men who are about 50 years of age; and what action is being taken to help these men to find employment and to persuade employers that a man is not too old at 50.

Mr. Isaacs: I am much concerned about this problem and have on several occasions appealed to employers in general not to impose unduly low age limits, and representations are made to particular employers when this point arises. After consultation with the Appointments Department Advisory Council, I am seeking the assistance of employers' associations and Chambers of Commerce. The age distribution of the working population is changing and employers must realise that their staffs will have to include a higher proportion of older men.

Mr. Collins: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that this disability does not still apply in the case of many Government Departments? Will he look into that aspect, particularly in relation to the Ministry of Transport, which disqualifies men from receiving appointments as driving instructors or examiners if they are over the age of 41?

Mr. Isaacs: I have no information about that. If my hon. Friend has any complaint about that Ministry, perhaps he might take it up with them. The Government are not following a policy of saying, "Too old at 50."

Mr. Lipson: Would not the Government be doing the right thing if they stated to employers that the Government are setting an example by employing some of these unemployed people of 50 or over themselves, and are also asking local authorities to do so?

Mr. Isaacs: That is, in fact, what I propose to say when I meet these organisations.

Exchanges (Current Vacancies)

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Minister of Labour what steps are taken to ensure that vacancies on the books at an employment exchange do, in fact, exist and that figures quoted are authentic.

Mr. Isaacs: It is the practice to verity that notified vacancies are still current if they remain unfilled after a month.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Consols

Mr. Osborne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that 2½ per cent. Consols have fallen from 99 per cent. to 91 per cent. during the year; whether Treasury support to the gilt-edged market is being withdrawn; and how much further the Government is prepared to allow the gilt-edged market to slide.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): I keep myself informed of these ups and downs, but, as I have said before, it would be contrary both to long established precedent and to the national interest that I should make public statements on the matters raised in the second and third parts of this Question.

Mr. Osborne: In view of the warning given by the City Editor of "The Times" last Thursday that the gilt-edged market may go lower, may I ask the Chancellor whether it is his policy to maintain or to discontinue his cheap money policy?

Mr. Dalton: The hon. Member had better re-read my Budget speech. As a matter of historical interest, when this Government took office Consols were down to 82, and between the wars, under a Conservative Government, in December, 1920, they were as low as 43.

Sir Frank Sanderson: Can the Chancellor state whether taking the long view, his policy remains unaltered, namely, to continue a cheap money policy?

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Osborne: Why could not I have had that question answered?

Trafalgar House (Disposal)

Commander Noble: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement about the position regarding the acquisition of Trafalgar House from the Nelson family for some public purpose.

Mr. Dalton: As I told the House on 3rd December, 1946, I invited my noble Friend, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to consider whether Trafalgar House might not be used for some naval purposes. He has informed me with regret


that he has not been able to make such an arrangement. The trustees are, therefore, free to dispose of the house in whatever way they wish.

Commander Noble: Could the Chancellor say whether consideration has been given to acquiring this house without all the land?

Mr. Dalton: I am disappointed, as is my noble Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, that we have not yet been able to arrange anything on the lines I have suggested. I will be very glad to look into the matter further. I am most anxious that the house should, if possible, be turned to some public use.

Mr. Keeling: Will the Chancellor consider inviting other Government Departments to see if they cannot use this house, so that it may remain a national possession?

Mr. Dalton: Yes. I shall be very glad to see what can be done.

British and U.S. Cinema Performers (Earnings)

Mr. H. D. Hughes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount of British currency earned and exported by U.S. cinema performers in this country in the financial year 1946–47 and during the current financial year; and the comparable figures of dollars earned by British stars in the U.S.A.

Mr. Dalton: Eighty-five thousand pounds for 1946–47 and £83,000 up to 10th July last. Cost of travel and expenditure here must be deducted. I have no figures for comparable dollar earnings.

Anglo-American Loan (Price Changes)

Mr. Sparks: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent the U.S. loan, has depreciated in value to this country as a consequence of the abandonment of control of prices in U.S.A.; and if he will make a statement showing purchase prices of the main items of import when the loan was contracted and what they are now.

Mr. Dalton: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Sparks: Will the Chancellor give the widest publicity to this matter as an indication to the country of the difficulties we are experiencing at the present time with regard to food imports?

Mr. Dalton: Yes. I have frequently referred to it in public, and so have many of my colleagues. We shall no doubt refer to it again. The fact that the dollar has depreciated in purchasing power is a very important factor in the present situation.

Following is the answer:

I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) on 17th December last. On the basis there used, the loan has depreciated in value to this country by 28 per cent. since it was contracted. The depreciation since 1st October, 1946, is 16 per cent. It is impossible to say to what extent this is due to the abandonment of price control in the U.S.A. or to the general rise in world prices. Wholesale import prices have increased by the following percentages since the loan was contracted:

Steel, 20 per cent.; raw cotton, 56 per cent.; softwoods, 100 per cent.; hardwoods, 50 per cent.; softwood plywood, 33 per cent.; hardwood plywood, unchanged; alcohols and solvents, 35 pet cent.; Rosin, 25 per cent. (allowing for seasonal variations); tobacco, 15 per cent. (1946 crop); wheat, 28 per cent.; carcase meat, 41 per cent.; cheese, 31 per cent.; dried egg, 5 per cent.; lard, 49 per cent.; copra (Philippines), 73 per cent.

On the other hand, the price of dried milk skim is down by 30 per cent.

Overseas Purchases (Convertible Currency)

Mr. Boothby: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the obligation undertaken by His Majesty's Government to pay for current transactions in convertible currency on request, after 15th July, applies to all our overseas purchases, or only to the outstanding differences between our imports and exports.

Mr. Dalton: The obligation is not to restrict the use of sterling currently earned for making payments for current transactions in any currency area, including the sterling area.

Mr. Boothby: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that we shall be able to fulfil it?

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House) for One hour after Ten o'clock.—[The Prime Minister.]

Orders of the Day — INDIAN INDEPENDENCE BILL

As amended, considered.

3.31 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Cripps): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
In moving the Third Reading of this Bill, I am introducing what will be the last Debate in this House on Indian affairs. For over a century now this House has been concerned with the conduct of affairs in India and the records show how many distinguished Members of the House have taken part in those Debates. Although it may be with regret that we thus pass from a great subject-matter to which so many hon. Members have given of their best in thought and effort, it is with the most profound gratitude that we should welcome the privilege that has made us the vehicles for the fulfilment of British policy in India, for there is no doubt of the fact that by passing this Bill, we shall be firmly and finally establishing our honesty of democratic purpose. There have been those who doubted whether we as a country would be prepared to carry out to their full and to their logical conclusion those professions of democracy which we have made in the past. This Bill is the proof of our sincerity of purpose.
We take this action, not because it is forced upon us by circumstances outside our control, but because it is consistent with all that we hold to be just and right. It is true, as many have remarked in the course of our discussions on the future of India, that we would far rather have passed a Bill setting up a single united government for India as a whole. That has not proved possible and it is not the sole fault of any of us, Indians or Englishmen, that it has not proved

possible. It is the inevitable outcome of a long history of difficulties and of tensions, of lost opportunities and human failures of which we have all had our share. None of us can point our finger at others and say, "But for you, all would have been well." I am perfectly conscious myself in the small part I have played in these matters, that by greater wisdom and understanding at particular moments I might have made a better contribution to a united India, but it is of no profit now to review the past. This Bill will launch us into a new and, let us hope, a happier era.
I have always held and often stated that we should never achieve true and worthwhile co-operation with India until we could deal with one another upon the basis of absolute equality. It is that equality which this Bill will establish for the first time. It will thus create a basis for a far deeper and more significant friendship between the peoples of our two countries. Some have thought in the past that we could hold India in close association with ourselves on some basis of modified domination. That is not possible, and to believe it shows a profound misunderstanding of all that is inherent in the democratic principles which we have spread throughout the world from this country. I am convinced, therefore, that this Bill will do more to create a real and living friendship with India than any other action which this country has ever taken.
A great deal has been said in the course of the Debates on this Bill on the subject of the Muslim and Hindu communities and the difficulties resulting from their inability to co-operate, but let us not forget that there are other important elements in India besides these two communities. To name two, there are the Sikhs and the Pathans. In some ways the position is far more difficult for these two communities than for the two major communities. It is not practicable, short of the complete Balkanisation of India, which I think no one desires, to give to every individual community the complete and undiluted rights of self-government which the two major communities attain through this Bill. But that fact does nothing to diminish our care or anxiety that the Sikhs and the Pathans should receive the fullest measure of recognition for their racial and cultural differences.


Both these people have shown restraint in their most difficult situation and we hope and believe that those to whom, by this Bill, we are now remitting power in Pakistan and India will do their utmost to admit the reasonable claims of these two splendid peoples who have contributed so much to the life of India.
I am glad, too, that the depressed classes in India, and other minorities such as the Indian Christians and Anglo-Indians, have been given a very full representation in the Minorities Commission set up by the Constituent Assembly of India in accordance with the suggestion that was made by the Cabinet Mission, and also that all their representatives are now working closely with the majority parties to evolve a fair and full protection for them in the future Constitution That and the action taken by the Constituent Assembly augured, I think, well for the future of their settling down together. No one who is conscious of the geographical, economic and social considerations which must condition the future of India and Pakistan can fail at this moment to express the hope that the peoples and Princes of the States will throw in their lot with the people of India or Pakistan to the very great benefit of all.
Changes brought about by this Bill must, of course, create problems for all parties, problems which are not easy to dispose of and which will need patient negotiation for their solution. I believe that it is most undesirable that we should attempt in any way to interfere in this matter or to force its solution in a particular direction. Whatever is done must be freely done, and must be acceptable to the peoples of the States as well as to those of India and Pakistan; but we would, at this moment of parting with our suzerainty in India, express the hope that the general good and future of the continent of India as a whole, under the leadership of the two new Commonwealth States, will outweigh any particular or local considerations.
It is important that the world should realise that this Bill has the support and backing of all the people of Great Britain of whatever party, that this is the solemn and considered act of the British people, and one which will give their country not less but more power to help in the wise conduct of world affairs. We do in this country believe most passion-

ately in our democracy, not as some lightly held theory which we can adapt and modify to meet the exigencies of our own temporary interests in an ever-changing world, but as a basis and foundation for all our progress and development. It is upon that basis that the British Commonwealth of Nations has grown up, and it is because our sister States in the Commonwealth, to which we now welcome India and Pakistan, share with us that same deep belief in the democratic tradition, that we have found the possibility of closer union with them than with other countries in the world.
It is, indeed, a remarkable fact that there have now entered freely into this British Commonwealth two great States with the age-long tradition and culture of Asia, so different from those of Europe, upon which hitherto has been largely based the common citizenship of the British Commonwealth of Nations. This is a new development, and it will create conditions that will demand all our care and leadership in guiding the Commonwealth towards a prosperous and stable future. It is with deep emotion and humility that I am sure we must contemplate this vitally important task which falls to our lot. It has often been said that in the British Commonwealth of Nations we have a prototype of that free and friendly association that we seek amongst all the nations of the world. We have, by this Bill, added a new feature to that prototype. We have blended in a single association of closely linked and equal nations with a common loyalty, the age-long wisdom of the East and the modern experience and development of the West. We have started to build a bridge between two great world civilisations which have much to learn from one another and a great deal to contribute to one another. The success which we can show the world in the years that lie ahead in this co-operation may have a profound effect upon world history.
No praise can be too high for all those in India who have contributed to this final stage of the fulfilment of our policy. The leaders of the two great Indian communities, who have, amidst the most intense difficulties, come to agreement on the course to be pursued; our own representatives, pre-eminent amongst them the Viceroy, who have laboured unceasingly and unselfishly to achieve that


agreement; the leaders of the other groups and communities, including those I have mentioned, who have been torn by the claims of their own people, but who, nevertheless, restrained their people from opposition; the Indian Christians and others who have uniformly given their support to a peaceful solution of the problem—all these have earned our gratitude. Every one of us must, however, realise the great difficulties that lie ahead, so great, indeed, that they well might cause lesser men than the Indian leaders of today to shrink from going forward into independence. In these coming days, we shall be ever ready and anxious to help them, through our experience, in any way that we can. It is not merely in name that they will become our sister nations within the British Commonwealth. That family association will place upon us a responsibility which we gladly and cheerfully accept, the responsibility to do our utmost to forward their independent progress and prosperity.
In giving this Bill what will, I am sure, be a unanimous Third Reading, we shall, I believe, blot out for ever the misunderstanding and difficulties that have, from time to time in the past, embarrassed our relations with the Indian people. India and Pakistan will take their places proudly in the comity of free and independent nations of the world, strengthened, we believe by the close ties of friendship with which they will be greeted as new members of the British Commonwealth of Nations; and it is, I am sure, the hope of all of us that this membership of our Commonwealth which they will share, will help them in the future to keep close to one another, and that the time will come when their present bitterness and opposition may be engulfed in the single purpose of the progress and prosperity of all the peoples of the Indian continent, whatever their race or creed. And, in that great forward journey upon which the two new members of the British Commonwealth of Nations will embark on 15th August next, which will become an historic day, we wish them "God speed" and assure them that we may ever be by their side in time of difficulty to extend a helping hand. Their leaders, who have struggled and suffered for the faith that was in them through long and hard years, we salute

now as fellow-workers in the cause of world peace and progress. May the sun which is now rising on their independence, never set upon their freedom and prosperity.

3.49 p.m.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I rise to associate my hon. and right hon. Friends and myself on this side of the House with the sentiments expressed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He is, if I may say so, a member of this House who has rendered eminent services in the cause of Indian self-government. We should like to make it quite clear that we support the Third Reading of this Bill. Indeed, I think that the businesslike and friendly atmosphere which prevailed in the Committee yesterday afternoon would have proved that, without any further remark from me. Many, many people have contributed to this ultimate result. The work of leading India towards self-government has its roots in the history of many years ago. How many have wondered what the final result was likely to be, and how many of us, whatever we may have contributed and in whatever capacity, have wondered whether we should ever reach a satisfactory solution. We are here this afternoon to celebrate a conclusion which, in most of its aspects, can be regarded as satisfactory.
There are one or two matters to which I shall refer in the course of my remarks, but I want to voice the general sentiment which we on this side of the House feel in regard to the main objective, and that is that we should practise as well as preach the doctrine of self-government; and that, I think, is achieved by the passage of this Bill. We have, in fact, been true to ourselves, and, by being true to ourselves and what we believe in, we have strengthened rather than weakened the British Imperial position and improved our position generally in the world. At any rate, I have had the opportunity of obtaining the reactions to this settlement in a country, namely the North American Continent, and in particular in the United States of America which has not always been friendly to or even understanding of the efforts of the British in India. I was very glad to observe the almost unanimous approval with which this solution was greeted, and, judging by a practical matter which is even more intense in


England today—the space in the newspapers—I was very glad to see that almost the whole of the details of the solution were printed on the front pages of the main newspapers. So that, though absent, I have been fully informed and I hope I am worthy to take part in this Debate.
We should have liked a little longer in which to consider this Bill, and a little longer time in which the parties in India, aided the Government, could have worked out a solution which might have been even more complete. But we understood that there were grave administrative difficulties, and difficulties between those who found it difficult to work together and might be likely to split later; and it was, therefore, essential for a Bill to be passed through in what amounts to almost a record time for a Measure of this sort. I believe that these decisions sprang from an original decision to abandon British recruitment to the Services in India. I have adverted to this matter before, and there is no advantage in going over it again, but the fact is that the Administration in India was not capable of continuing indefinitely in the atmosphere which had been created. I, myself, do not accept responsibility for that original decision, but it was taken, and there is no doubt that to spin out the matter any longer might have been fraught with great danger.
I should like at this point to pay to the Services in India a tribute which we on this side of the House feel should be paid, and to welcome the statement made by the Prime Minister on the Second Reading, which is a distinct advance on any previous statement made about the Services—the conditions, pensions and general desires of the Services in India—and I trust that the undertaking given by the Under-Secretary of State in Committee last night, that the Prime Minister's words were to be taken literally and in their full context, will have been noted by the Services in India. I should like to support the claim that was made from these benches last night, that further efforts be made to publicise that statement in India so as to give confidence to the Services, whether they be Secretary of State's Services or not.
Here I should like to pay a tribute to the India Office. If I may say so, I can make this claim, that I have as many

personal friends in that office as I have in almost any other organisation or institution in which I have ever had the honour to serve. Many of the men and women in that office have been in periods of great doubt as to how all this was going to work out. They have lived under a perpetual strain, whether in this country or in their journeys to India, and I think we should realise that many of them deserve our thanks for the manner in which they have pursued these aims throughout this period and over these long years.
I said just now that we should have liked a little more time. We should have liked certain aspects of the settlement to have been rather more satisfactory, but even we, with all the freedom of Opposition, did not expect any easy solution for this most complex problem. In fact, no one who has devoted his life to this subject could imagine that any solution would be easily found. I believe that on one occasion in his career, Lord Curzon, perhaps our greatest proconsul, kept an official file for up-wards of two months. His officials, accustomed to his regular habits, were very surprised when the file was at last returned and it had, instead of a minute couched in the Edwardian phraseology of that great statesman, the following words: "This is a damned tough nut to crack." That may well be taken by some of us, and by some in the country who read our Debates, as a warning that the Indian leaders in facing their problems are going to have very considerable difficulties, and that this is going to be a tough nut to crack.
One of Lord Curzon's successors was Lord Minto, endowed essentially with common sense. My uncle was at the time private secretary and head of his office, and used to send him the files. At the beginning of Lord Minto's career, the files were sent to him with a series of decisions set out on top in tabular form, 1, 2 and 3, for His Excellency's attention. But my uncle found after a time that however many decisions he sent up, the initial "M" was always put at the top of the file. On several occasions he referred these back to His Excellency who continued to put "M." In future, therefore, my uncle referred only one decision, and His Excellency either adopted that decision or rejected it. That


may well be a better line of conduct for the Governors-General whose appointments have been announced and who are about to take office after the appointed day. I should not advise them to adopt the procedure of Lord Curzon of keeping the files. I should advise them to make an immediate decision, even if it means simply putting their initials at the top. We certainly wish the Governors-General well in their very difficult task, and trust that they will acquit themselves as we should desire them to do.
It is some consolation that those of us who laboured with the Act of 1935 should find that the corpus of law which remains as the basis of the Bill is that of the Act of 1935. It is subject to considerable changes. Indeed, it was impossible in the short time in the Committee stage to elicit exactly what parts of that Act remain and what do not, but I think it is satisfactory to claim that, at any rate, that Act forms the basis. It is not surprising, and I certainly do not complain, that the last 12 years should have resulted in a considerable departure from the general principles of that Act. Probably in no country have the effects of the war been felt so much as in the political life of India. It has been increasingly difficult to keep pace with the political changes in India. Those who were our critics only a few weeks ago have now themselves been violently assailed with criticism. There is no doubt that new forces are growing up in India, and there is equally no doubt that in several months time we may well be supporting with equal energy those who were our critics a short time ago.
Among the new forces I should like on this occasion to refer not so much to those revolutionary and other forces which may tend to threaten the regime, but to the place which I feel sure will be taken by the women of India. I myself feel certain, from my small knowledge of India, that the women have a great part to play in that continent, whether in India or in Pakistan. Many prominent women have taken part in our deliberations, and I hope that they will continue to mix in public life and thereby greatly enlarge the area of talent upon which the new Governments and Administrations can draw. I trust that they will play their part in improving social conditions in India, because, if they do, I am happy

to think that those social conditions may very rapidly be improved.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade used some felicitous language on the subject of our Imperial relations with the new Dominions. I think I have stated once before in one of our Debates that we are entering upon the fourth period of Empire. That fourth period will concern itself not so much with the word "Empire," but will see a development of the system of relations within the Commonwealth, which will mean that the British power of invention, of elasticity, and of political wisdom will grow and expand in a manner surprising to our enemies and satisfying to our friends. The association of these two Dominions is, I think, a most notable step in the history of Imperial relations. It is remarkable, not only from the point of view of Imperial relations generally, but I think it has a finer aspect, namely, that within the same continent these two new countries will have Dominion relationships with one another. That, I think, is going to be vital for the future defence of India, and for the settlement and maintenance of the frontiers of India.
It is always said that the most remarkable frontier affecting the British Commonwealth is that between the United States and Canada, where one can see no guard and where there are miles and miles of friendly contact. Those of us who know some of the difficulties and sorrows of the partitions that are taking place, and in particular those in the Punjab, will realise that it is too much to hope that there will be no unfriendly gestures, or no unfortunate skirmishing. But let us at least hope that, thanks to the Dominion relationship that will prevail between these two new Dominions, frontiers may be set up and observed which, in time, may be regarded as just as friendly as the famous frontier to which I have drawn the attention of the House. But we must remember that in the partition of the Punjab, which is the second partition, apart from the partition of India itself, we have left the Sikh community, to whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman made reference, almost exactly divided as between one side of the frontier and another.
It is to be hoped that the boundary commission, on which the most serious


responsibility will fall, will be able so to arrange the boundary that shrines and properties, and other things held dear to the Sikhs, may he amassed, as far as possible, in one area, provided that no violence is done to a proper division between Muslim and non-Muslim areas, in the same way, it is hoped that the partition of Bengal will so take place that the industrial welfare of the Eastern portion may not be prejudiced, and that access may be had to the sea through the port of Calcutta in some satisfactory manner.
I cannot help feeling, although the partition of India appears violently necessary at the present time, that as history develops, certain contacts must be made between the two portions of India which have been divided, and that the conception of a greater whole will arise. I looked over many of the documents and papers which we had to study in the course of the preparation of the 1935 Act, those relating to communications, to railways, and, in particular, to the provision of water in one section of India to the other. Very often a water supply to the villages it has to serve may be divided by the frontier. In the question of finance, in all of these aspects some nexus will be necessary, and how that is to be invented is at present beyond the wit of man. Immediate arrangements have to be made before the appointed day. There is a violent hurry, and it is quite clear to any who have studied this matter scientifically at all that many of these great questions are left unsolved at the present time, and for some time in the future. I trust, therefore, that the relationship between the Governors-General and the Ministers of the various Governments may be friendly, and that matters to be decided, may be taken to the Arbitral Tribunal, which was mentioned yesterday in the course of our deliberations. I should like the Government to consider in another place whether the Arbitral Tribunal cannot be brought more into the picture, and whether they have given their final decision as to its inclusion in the Bill.
When we come to the question of the Indian States, I maintain that the handling of this question is in marked contrast with the rest of the settlement. We on this side of the House have always stressed the importance of the

States in India as an integral question by itself, and one which deserves the utmost consideration. Elaborate provisions were put into the Act of 1935 to provide for the accession of States and to give them the free right to accede to the Federation. I am told—and the right hon. and learned Gentleman has repeated the phrase—that the Government have been nervous about the Balkanisation of India, and that, therefore, they have been nervous about giving too much opportunity to the States to establish an independent position and not to join one or other side. I am not going to claim that the States are themselves without fault. I, myself, bitterly regret that they did not take advantage of the opportunities offered to them by the 1935 Act to accede to federation on the very fair terms which were then offered. But it is no good going back on history. I remember my disappointment at the second Round Table Conference, when the Muslims refused, through their official spokesmen, an offer of provincial autonomy officially made to them. That was some 16 years ago. If people had thought earlier, how easier would the government of the world be. Now we are faced with the facts as we find them.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked us today to believe that the right policy was that the States should throw in their lot with one or other of the Indian Dominions. I quite understand the dangers of Balkanisation. I believe that the parcellation of some of the small States in India was a feature of Indian life which some Government or other would eventually have had to deal with. Indeed, the Department of the Government of India responsible has already made certain ventures in the direction of bringing units and States together, especially in the West of India. I think it is right for many States to take the decision to join one or other Dominion. But we cannot, on the information in our possession, exclude the probability that some States will desire their independence. Some States, we are sure, will want to remain independent and to have relations with us.
The right hon. and learned Attorney-General referred to these matters last night, and it is quite clear that the Government are not going to be pressed


on this matter, and are not going to say any more, because, in the words of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, they do not wish to force a solution. All I can say, therefore, in reason, and maintaining the atmosphere of the Debate, as we have maintained it, is that I trust that when it becomes clear that a unit among the States, or one, or some of the States, desires to maintain independence, the Government will then enter into relations with that State and will handle it with sympathy and with understanding. I need hardly remind tl.e House that the State of Hyderabad, for example, has more inhabitants than any British Dominion, including Canada, and is at least the size of France. In some of these States, we are dealing with very large units indeed, units which have stayed by us loyally in more than one war, and the integrity of which are beyond question.
Scant attention has been given to the minorities, especially in the Committee stage. In fact, it proved virtually impossible to raise their case. It is very difficult to raise their case because the fact is that this House is deciding today to transfer sovereignty and power to the Indians themselves. We are also deciding that that independence shall take place before the actual Constitution making, and that means that the Constituent Assemblies have it in their power to make a Constitution under which the minorities will have to live. It is, therefore, not surprising, when I have studied the literature sent me by the leaders of the minorities, that I have not been able to find any very concrete suggestion to make. Because, in fact, any constitutional devices that one recommends must under this Bill, be decided by the constituent bodies themselves.
I have, however, had drawn to my attention by the leader of the Scheduled Castes, a man with whom we have worked in the past, and who has served their cause, namely, Dr. Ambedkar, that it would be extremely helpful if some reference could be made to this community in the course of our Debates; and I, therefore, say that I trust that, when the new Constitution is made, full consideration will be given to the position of the Scheduled Castes themselves. It is sometimes said that Britain has not done enough for them. It is well known, I

think, that Queen Victoria's original proclamation—about our not interfering too much with the religion and habits of the people—has prevented the British from doing, perhaps, as much as they might have desired; but there is no doubt that, in later years, by a variety of devices, we have attempted to influence improvement of the position of the Scheduled Castes and have tried to mitigate the horrors of untouchability. In fact, the Franchise Committee itself recommended electorates which would have given the Scheduled Castes an opportunity for election and for looking after their own affairs. Unfortunately, the decisions of the Franchise Committee were abrogated by the Poona Pact, produced by one of Mr. Gandhi's longest fasts. I cannot now influence the decision of the constitution-making body, but it is quite clear that, under the Poona Pact, the Scheduled Castes do not get a chance of electing their representatives who ultimately represent their point of view. I hope that in part or parts of India it may be possible to find for them an electoral system which will be of a kind more suitable for them.
There are many other minorities—Anglo-Indians, Christians, to whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred, and many others—whose case we considered last night. We trust that in the future of India they, and those Europeans who are going to stay and practise their legitimate trade, will find free and fair opportunity, and will find happiness under the new regime. But there are many other sections of opinion, minorities among the Muslims, cultivators and others, who do not mix in the political life, have not shouted or talked politics, but whose views are sometimes not quite the same as some of those who steal the thunder and appear before the footlights.
I remember some wording used in the Gracious Speech on the occasion of the inauguration of the Conference in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords on 12th November, 1930. These words were:
I have in mind the just claims of majorities and minorities, of men and women, of the town dwellers and the tillers of the soil, of the landlords and the tenants, of the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, of the races, castes, and creeds of which the body politic is composed. For these things I care deeply
For these people and these things we care


deeply. They are passing out of our immediate care. We are moved on this occasion, and we wish those well who are assuming the Government and the responsibility for the welfare of the Indian peoples.

4.14 p.m.

Mr. Clement Davies: This is a deeply emotional moment. For two centuries Members of this House have debated India, the condition of its people, their welfare, prosperity, and poverty, their development, their education, and their government in all its forms. There have been many historic occasions among which the outstanding and notable Parliamentary figures of the time have taken part. One recalls Debates not only in this Chamber but in the one which we recently occupied until it was destroyed by the enemy, and there were earlier Debates in the old Chamber, on the site now occupied by St. Stephen's Hall, and even in Westminster Hall itself. Today the Members of the British House of Commons, representing the people of Britain, will give the Third Reading to this, the Indian Independence Bill, and will do so without a single dissenting voice.
So ends one era, an era covering not only the 200 years of which I have spoken, but even longer than that. During aril period there has been a close collaboration and relationship between the peoples of India and the peoples of these islands. It has been an era upon which we and the generations which will follow us, can look back with justifiable pride. Our people, throughout the many decades, have striven conscientiously and loyally through multifarious difficulties for the welfare of the peoples of India. There have been many mistakes. There have been, on occasions, bad mistakes. But, "To err is human; to forgive, divine." We have, so far as we could, brought peace from all external force, and we have established law and order, a system of law and of the administration of justice. We have built roads, canals, railways, harbours, systems of irrigation, factories, plant and machinery; we have built schools, colleges and universities; and we have introduced and established health and welfare measures. We have founded and taught by example and by precept a Civil Service and the methods of the working of popular govern-

ment. But, above all, we have tried to inculcate a spirit of tolerance and or understanding and a sense of justice among Indians—a sense of equity and a sense of fairness. On the other hand, we, too, have reaped great benefits from an association with that vast sub-continent and its peoples, both during our years of prosperity and our years of peril. The very association with India added to our prestige and our position in the affairs of the world.
So now, if I may use the analogy, we leave the old mansion where we have lived and collaborated so long and so sucessfully. We leave it with a great degree of nostalgia. We cannot entirely forget those things which are behind us. But, on both sides, we shall obliterate from the tablets those things which are hurtful and bitter, and recall and cherish those memories which are forever fresh in their pleasantness; and we shall watch, with anxious pride and throbbing hope, the efforts which the Indian peoples themselves make in reaching forward unto those things which are before them.
Today, after much discussion and debate over many years, the sketch plans for the site—and that is all—of the new building are being passed. It will be for the new India and the new Pakistan to decide what form the new structure will take. We hope and believe that they will build well and build worthily. Each has colossal tasks, immense political and administrative tasks, and even more immense economic tasks. In their work we not only wish them well, but we wish them true and real success, and we assure them, as both right hon. Gentlemen have already assured them, that, in any assistance of any kind which they, at any time, desire, we pledge ourselves to render all that is in our power. They have only to ask and all their sister nations within the great Commonwealth, of which they now stand as independent: parts, will do all they can in ready response. We all desire to give accord to the eloquent and sincere speech made by the President of the Board of Trade. It would be fitting that on this great occasion, when we are ending this whole era, that the Father of the House, who has had such a long association with India, and has himself been the witness of so many great Debates in this country, should say the last word on behalf of us all.

4.21 p.m.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: This is, indeed, an historic occasion, and, like every hon. Member, I approach it with mixed emotions. The emotions uppermost in my mind are those of melancholy and of hope—melancholy, partly because I feel that this Bill could have been even more satisfactory, for I cannot approach the question of partition without grave misgivings; and melancholy too, because it marks the end of a great chapter in English history. We are today not causing the death, but registering the death, of much that has been of great good for India and for the human race. Let us pause for one moment in thanksgiving that our people have been allowed the privilege of bringing many hundreds of millions of people, thousands of miles away into the line of Western civilisation. Let us make no mistake about it, our administration in India has caused a great increase in human happiness, and a great mitigation of human misery. It has set up in that distant land standards that were never known there before.
So it is fitting and proper that hon. Members on this side of the House particularly, who, more than hon. Members opposite, look towards the past for their inspiration, should pause for one moment in an act of gratitude to Providence that our forefathers have been enabled to carry out this great work. There is much melancholy in this rapidly changing world, and the passing away of so much that is noble cannot but strike a sombre note in our hearts. But there is much hope, too. A chapter has been closed; the curtain has rung down upon a scene of one of the most vivid dramas that human history has ever witnessed. But a new chapter is opening; the curtain is ringing up on another act in the same drama, with the same actors playing the leading roles, and with the same audience looking on. It is very easy, particularly today, to look back with some melancholy on the past, and to shut one's eyes to the hopes of the future, and to shut one's conscience, too, to the great need for effort, courage and hard work if the great principles which have guided us in the past are to be enabled to operate in the future.
I believe that we in this country are gravely out of touch with India. I believe that a feeling of great optimism reigns in India; there is a great surge of

national feeling, a great recovery of national pride, a great turning over of new leaves, and—if I may say so without appearing flippant—a great burying of hatchets. Do not let us allow our natural and justifiable sense of melancholy to cloud all feeling of hope and optimism at this historic moment. The significance for us lies in the fact that our work will now be put to the proof. We shall have succeeded if our standards—and I say this without arrogance, and in an effort to approach the question factually—of law, liberty, justice, kindliness and tolerance have taken root in India and flourish, though under a new guise. We shall have failed if India turns her back upon all that we have taught and all that we have lent her, and relapses into something quite different. That is really the significance for us of this historic moment.
I want to make two points quite clear as far as the future is concerned. The President of the Board of Trade said that this was the last occasion upon which we should debate Indian affairs. I cannot differ from him too strongly. I am firmly convinced that the inter-dependence of India and Great Britain will be no less strong in the future than it has been in the past. It may even be stronger. I believe that there will be constant Debates in this House, not perhaps on Indian affairs—"affairs" is perhaps the operative word—but upon our relations with India, upon which I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman would agree. I want to make quite clear to the House and to the country my conviction that we have not washed our hands of India, that we have not said good-bye to India. Our responsibility for the happiness of the peoples of India will be just as great in the future, with free and independent partners in the Commonwealth, as it has been in the past. The responsibility of a brother is no less heavy than that of a proprietor or a trustee; and our relationship in the future will be that of a brother.
What we in this country must realise, and what we seem to have forgotten, is that the approach to the peoples of India must be through the heart and not through the head. We have been surprised and hurt that, in the light of all we have done for India—and we have done great things—we should, on many occasions, have been greeted with what


may appear to some of us to be ingratitude or lack of appreciation. There should be no surprise in that. In the past 20 or 40 years we have tended to lose touch with the great heart of India. I believe our steps first went wrong when, with the inevitable growth of the modern bureaucratic machine, there was an increasing loss of contact between the administrators and those whom they ruled. Administration tended to be concentrated in the larger centres of population, and that old contact between the European administrator and the villagers and country folk became lost. That is to be seen quite clearly in considering the Indian Army. For in the Indian Army there is complete unity, with the best of relationships between every race and creed, and every colour. That stands out in startling contradistinction to the loss of contact and the loss of good feeling in the political and administrative field.
I repeat, the approach must be through the heart. We must have an intense awareness of the great pathos of the Indian scene, an intense awareness of the fact that only infinite compassion and understanding can cope with that pathos, and that means taking trouble on our part. The real mistake we have made—I almost used the word "crime"—was that the average Englishman in this country has neglected the duty of making personal contacts and establishing personal relations with India and with Indians. Now everything depends on whether we can build up again that old standard of personal relationship which existed in the long distant past, and which has faded away so lamentably in recent years. This Debate is, in some sense, meaningless. We are not here to make speeches to persuade another part of the House to our own point of view —or, indeed, to persuade the people of this country to take certain action. This Debate is really the registration of the consummation of long past years. But I believe that two useful purposes can he served by our speeches.
First, it must be reiterated that this is a national Measure. I do not say this "gift of independence," because that might sound patronising, but this Indian Independence Bill is the action of the people of every section of this country. We on this side of the House believe that we have just as honourable a record—although we perhaps approach the matter

from a slightly different angle—in the growth of self-government for India as any other party, and we associate ourselves wholeheartedly with the reception into the British Commonwealth of Nations of these two new Dominions. Second, this is, perhaps, our last opportunity for the time being to assure the peoples of India of our sympathy and our understanding.
At the risk of appearing to be unduly emotional, I say that the message we should send out to the peoples of India is one of love. It is understanding, sympathy and love that India requires, and India can comprehend. We believe that we are destined to march together. Let the message we send out be the devout prayer that the Light of Heaven may be the guide of the peoples of India—that Light which shines clearly before the eyes of all who heed, whatever their race or faith. We say to India, "Hail and Farewell; but Hail again." We believe that we shall and can march hand-in-hand through the perils and opportunities of the future. The world today is a dark, dreary and dismal place, full of fears, hatreds and miseries. Amidst the oceans of unhappiness, which seem every day to be rising, that great reservoir of good feeling, understanding and affection which subsists between Britain and India, stands like a beacon light to all the peoples of the world. Let us cherish that light, and may God bless the peoples of India.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. Rees-Williams: Everyone of us realises that today we are writing a momentous page in the long history of our association with the peoples of India, an association going hack to the days of the little trading posts on the coast of India, and that we are now at the beginning of a new and glorious chapter in this long association. This Bill is one of the most important which has been considered by this House. It deals with no fewer than 400 million people; it starts a new era in the history of the Commonwealth, and emphasises a new and peaceful association between the Orient and the Occident. I happened to be in the Far East at the time of the recent Inter-Asian Conference, and it was remarkable to me, reading day-by-day the work of that conference, to find how happy was the association between the peoples of the Far East and


India, and the peoples of this country I know that a great deal of that happy feeling in the Far East is due to the wisdom and patience of the Government during the last two years. When His Majesty's Government came into office, the Indian situation was very difficult. There was complete lack of trust in the British on the part of the leaders of opinion in India. One thing this Government have done, which will be eternally to their credit—I say this in no party spirit—is that they have given to the people of India and Burma complete confidence in their sincerity. That is a matter which will go down in history and of which we in this country should be proud.
With regard to the Bill itself, we ought not to leave it without saying a word of praise and thanks to those who have drawn it up. It was prepared very rapidly, and it is, I imagine, a masterpiece of draftsmanship. As one who has from time to time criticised the Parliamentary draftsmen for what I considered to be faults in Bills, I should now like to give them a meed of praise for their able performance.
This Bill confers upon the two States, Pakistan and India, Dominion status, and I hope it will bring to the notice of the world just what Dominion status is. Both the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister of New Zealand have pointed out that Dominion status is not something less than independence, but is independence plus something else. I hope that the peoples of the world will realise that. They do not seem to realise it yet, and that is one of the difficulties we have had and are having now, in certain parts of the Commonwealth without Dominion status, in persuading them to achieve it. They think it is Colonial status and not full independent status plus something more. Those who know the United States, and I am not among that happy band, will agree that in America there are many people, who should know better, lacking an appreciation of what Dominion status means.
This free choice by two great States, comprising together some 400 million people and one-fifth of the population of the world, is of such great significance that it will bring home to people all over the world exactly what Dominion status means. I hope that from now on we

shall not make Dominion status too rigid, by insisting on any particular form of verbiage. If States within the Commonwealth do not wish to be called Dominions, I hope that we shall not try to force it upon them, because it seems to me that this is a case where one word is as good as another, so long as the object is achieved, namely, free association within the Commonwealth. A number of difficult problems were considered in the Committee stage, such as the future of the States, the frontier question, and the difficulties of the Punjab and Bengal While there are difficulties, India is not the only country with difficulties; there is no country in the world which has not got difficulties, and great ones; and therefore, because there are difficulties, we need not be pessimistic. Now that these problems are in the hands of the Indians themselves, and now that they have to solve them for themselves, I feel certain that they will arrive at just and proper solutions. So long as they always had to depend on some outside Power in reaching a final decision, there was no incentive on their part to arrive at decisions. Now that it is in their own hands I wish them God speed.
The great difficulty in India, as even those with such scant knowledge of the sub-continent as I have know—it is perfectly apparent as one goes about India—is the great economic problem. It is a problem which the Indians will have to take into account. There are 300 million people living on the land, and great strides will be necessary in scientific agriculture before they can support themselves on a reasonable basis. There are various matters affecting this agricultural question which, to my mind, is the root of the whole Indian problem in future. One of the matters which affects the subsistence level of the Indian peasants is the cow population. It is estimated that there are no fewer than 225 million cows in India, and that this figure may in time rise to 400 million. We all know the difficulties in connection with this problem, which is one no outside Power can settle. It is a matter which the Indians themselves will in time have to tackle, and I am sure they will tackle it before they can get any sort of subsistence for their people.
But there are various ways in which we can give them help. We can give them


advice on agriculture and on industrialisation We can give them scientific assistance by means of experts, and the like. I know that they need this assistance, that they realise they need it, and are very grateful for what help can be given in this way. It seems to me that not only in India, but throughout the Far East, one of the parts we have to play in our new role is to provide the scientific, technical and other advice and assistance which we, and only we, can properly give with our long experience of these matters on an advanced scale. We have no longer arms or money with which to provide them, nor would we wish to provide arms if we had them, but we can provide ideas and the means of carrying these ideas into practice. One particular way in which we can help the Indians to develop—if they so desire it, not otherwise—is by the idea of a Parliamentary democracy with a planned economy, the same idea that we are putting into practice in this country.
Another matter which arises as the result of this Bill is the question of citizenship and nationality. As the British Commonwealth develops there will be very interesting results of that development in so far as many countries desire to have in addition to nationality, a type of citizenship which is not British Commonwealth citizenship, which is something less, and which they can use to serve their own people, to take the place of the nationality which a small State has for its own domestic purposes, but which a vast Commonwealth like ours cannot possibly achieve. Canada has such a citizenship, so has Eire, and now it is proposed in Malaya, and I have no doubt that it will come, in time, in Pakistan and India. They are new developments in our world history and legal system, but they are interesting and necessary developments of the times.
The future is in the hands of the Indians themselves, and they realise it only too well. Pandit Nehru, some time ago, said these words, which, I think, are full of wisdom:
It is always more difficult to fight one's own weaknesses than the power of an adversary. We have social evils, with the authority of long tradition and habit behind them. We have within us the elements that have gone to build Fascism in other countries. We have inertia and a tame submission to fate and its decrees.

We all have weakness of various kinds but Pandit Nehru has realised these weaknesses which, he says, are in the Indian people. To realise a weakness is the first stage towards overcoming it. We believe that this Bill, and the consequences which will flow from it, are necessary steps towards enabling Indians, not only to overcome those old habits, but to build new traditions on their ashes. We, as an old, and, shall I say, fully-fledged member of the British Commonwealth, today welcome both India and Pakistan as new members of the Commonwealth, and feel certain that as the years go by, they will prove themselves ever more worthy to be members of this great brotherhood of nations.

4.46 p.m.

Lord John Hope: At this moment of farewell to India, I hope the House will tolerate a brief intervention from one who was personally connected with a Viceroy who gave many years of service to India during the last stages of her journey towards independence. As the Prime Minister said during the Second Reading Debate, the theme is a great one and those words have been re-echoed by speakers in all quarters of the House throughout that Debate and subsequent Debates. But in its tribute to the greatness of the theme I have wondered sometimes whether the House, as a whole, has realised, and does realise, the gravity of the hour. Although I have perhaps considered what we claim to be magnanimous as being also inevitable, I have supported the policy of His Majesty's Government all through, and I hope, therefore, that such remarks as I feel it in my duty to make will be heard by the House against that background.
I feel, however, that support for this Measure is really no excuse for shirking an objective analysis of the situation. Besides, we in this House have a duty to the people of this country as well as to India. Stripped of all sentimental embroidery what does this Bill do? It enables us to leave India. That is its purpose, and that is also the purpose of the Viceroy. As a result of this Bill a fundamental factor in the whole Indian situation will have been irrevocably removed. I mean British responsibility. Hitherto, Indians have wielded great political power for many years. That


power has steadily increased but, ultimately and always, there has been only one sanction for the maintenance of law and order and impartial justice, and that has been the British Raj. This Bill ends all that. I make no apology for having so far stated what is obvious, but I believe it was necessary to do so because I have detected a tendency, in some quarters, to believe that because of the symbolic ties of the Crown with India, ties which still remain, and which in all parts of the House we hope will continue, in some way it will be "all right in the end"—to use a colloquial expression.
Above all, in spite of communal dissension, we gave to India political unity. By the desire of the Indians that unity goes at a stroke. We cannot help it, but we can say that we regret it. In that connection, I record my own regret, which I know I share with most hon. Members in this House, that the names of the two Dominions are what they are now to be. I wish profoundly that the name "India" had been kept out of it for the time being, because it may be only a name, but the name "India," as I see it, should have stood as a prize to be won; a prize for unity. I believe that one day that prize will be won. I wish that the Indians—by whose desire I know this name has been conferred on the Dominion—had stood by the original idea of Hindustan and Pakistan.
This disruption of Indian unity has had one immediate result of great significance. The Indian Army is to be split and its effectiveness reduced, as one estimate has it, to about one-sixth of its former power. Set that fact against the political division of the great sub-continent, and the net result must be that the Indian political structure is weakened. I bring that fact out for this reason: it is going to be very easy, in my opinion, unless great care is taken, to fall between two stools during the period into which we are now moving. As we are no longer to be responsible in India, so I say it is essential that we must not get involved in any possible quarrel or disagreement between the two new Dominions. I know that His Majesty's Government share that view, but I look upon the future in this connection with a certain amount of anxiety, and I was reminded of what might lie ahead by two references in yesterday's Committee stage Debate.

Reference was made to the possibility of what is called an "Arbitral Tribunal" being set up. The Attorney-General said:
In regard to some matters it may be that an Arbitral Tribunal should be set up, and discussions have taken place already in regard to that.
But that seems to suggest the idea of Britain still as the ultimate authority. On another occasion, earlier, the Prime Minister used these words in connection with the discussions for the defence of the North-West Frontier. He said,
I should not like to go further than to say that the Government"—
His Majesty's Government—
would be perfectly willing to enter into discussions with the successor Governments on any matter of common defence."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th July, 1947; Vol. 440, c. 127 &amp; 113.]
I know that the Prime Minister could not reasonably go deeply into that particular subject, but I hope that when the Minister winds up I may get some definition of what the Prime Minister meant. How far do we intend, now that we have no longer responsibility in India, to get involved in discussions on defence? It needs little imagination, in my opinion, to see how easily a commitment of that sort may lead to our having to take sides on behalf of one Dominion against the other. These may not be pleasant possibilities, but I believe them to be distinct possibilities, and I think that they should be stated.
I am glad that throughout the Debate on this Bill events have taken their course so far as the Princes and the Services are concerned in the way that they have. Of course, as far as those elements are concerned, and so far as the minorities are concerned, we know that we can really do nothing any more in this House. We know that we have to rely on the sense of fairmindedness and justice of those to whom the responsibility is now to pass. I believe that we can also rest assured that as far as His Majesty's Government can help, they will. All I will say, before I close, about the splitting of India into two is that, in my view, it is very lucky indeed that in fact there is not to be one Governor-General for the two Dominions. I do not know how Lord Mountbatten, with all his range of talents, would be able to take the advice of the Ministers of India, as it is now to he called, on the one hand, and


contrary advice on the same subject from the Ministers of Pakistan. I think that his situation would have been very near to that of Gilbert's Lord Chancellor in "Iolanthe" who got into difficulties when he wished to marry one of his wards. Luckily, that difficulty has been solved.
I started my speech on a valedictory note because it must be realised that we are saying "goodbye" to India. As we do so, I think we may all of us look back with pride on the fact that united, India has stood. I think also we should look forward with a prayer that divided, she shall not fall. One of the Indian leaders said the other day:
Let us now forget the past.
Not, I hope, all of it. I would say in final farewell to India: Do not forget the law and order we gave you; do not forget the impartial justice we gave you; do not forget the tolerance and freedom of expression that we gave you. Of such quality is the light of the torch we now hand on to you. Do you keep it burning.

5.0 p.m.

Dr. Haden Guest: My political awakening and consciousness of political life took place at a meeting to which I was taken, as a small child, to hear a Member of this House speaking on a subject which was very unpopular at that time—India and the condition of the Indian peasants. The speaker was Charles Bradlaugh. I remember very little of the substance of the speech, but I remember the tremendous energy of the speaker, his immense enthusiasm and I remember my father afterwards telling me about the great work Bradlaugh was trying to do for India to rouse opinion in her favour against apathy, contempt and very great difficulties of every kind. Afterwards I came to know Mrs. Annie Besant, who did a great work for the Congress Movement in India and helped to build up a great movement under the slogan "India a Nation."
Although I had never been to India until last year, I had always felt a great link with India because of those early associations and because I learned early in life to read some of the great Indian scriptures such as the Bhagavad-gita, and learned from them great lessons about life, lessons which we can find in other scriptures and which are well worth studying. When I was in India recently,

I went round very rapidly, as few people can ever have done, for I covered the whole of India inside a month. I travelled by aeroplane and saw the whole of India at one season of the year. I saw the great plains between Karachi and Delhi, the almost infinite number of small villages, and when flying low the work of the peasants in the fields. The myriad life of India impressed itself on me very vividly indeed. Then in Delhi, when I had the great pleasure and honour of staying with the Commander-in-Chief, I learnt something at first hand of the hopes of the official classes. I met a number of Indian Princes. It was during last November when they were considering matters arising from the new Constitution for India which we are now debating, and I was very glad to learn that what they were considering three months ago was methods of co-operation and not methods of separation.
In the course of my travels, I went to the North-West Frontier and one day I stood on the site of a place the name of which will be known to many Members. It is Taxila. This was the place where Alexander's armies came from Europe into India. It made me realise how very long the history of India is, for India was a great civilisation long before that. As I listened to the speeches this afternoon, I could not help thinking that a great chapter in our history, and I hope the Indians will also consider it a great chapter of their history, namely, the British occupation of India, is now drawing to a close. At the same time we should put that into historical perspective and remember that it has been, in comparison with the history of India as a whole, only a small chapter, though a very important one. There have been great and glorious episodes in Indian history before, and there will be, I am sure, great and glorious episodes in the future.
I cannot but feel that we should not concern ourselves so much today with the details, which indeed are no longer our concern, of how the Governments will be carried on, how the two Commonwealths will co-operate on all detailed arrangements which are the everyday administration of any Government in any Commonwealth and any Dominions of any nation. I think instead we should look forward into the future and think of the great part that India is going to play. We in the


past undoubtedly have been the means of linking India to Western industrial civilisation. That has been immensely important and valuable to the world. India in the future is going to have a very great task in leading the nations in the East. One hon. Member has already mentioned the Pan-Asiatic Conference in Delhi presided over by Pandit Nehru, which was being held last year when I was in Ceylon. There were representatives present at that conference of all the Eastern nations, including China, Japan, Indonesia, French Indo-China, the Malayan States, Burma and the countries of the Eastern Soviet Republic as well as many other countries. The language of that Conference was English, the only language which the delegates had in common. I think that that is immensely significant for the future of India and the British Commonwealth to which the two new Indian Dominions will belong.
India will, undoubtedly, be the leader of the Eastern world, which includes that immense area of China needing so much assistance and which has been so strangely divided from India through the centuries by that great mountain range, for they are almost more separated than we are from the Indians. I think it is of immense significance that India is taking the lead in this great Eastern movement at the moment when she is assuming her place with two equal partners in the British Commonwealth of Nations. We have been a link by which the Western world has been joined to India, and India to Western industrial civilisation. India, is obviously becoming the bridge which will unite the Eastern world to Western civilisation, and will be the highway for Eastern ideas coming into the Western sphere in increasing volume. Someone suggested we had much to give to India in the way of scientific direction. Let us not forget that India has had and now has some of the world's outstanding scientists in her own ranks.
I feel that we should not talk today of saying farewell to India. We are welcoming two new Commonwealths into the brotherhood of a great Commonwealth of which we ourselves form one part. The two new Commonwealths will have a great part to play and will bring a great new influence into our lives. We should not today say farewell to India, but wel-

come to the Indian Commonwealths as our partners in that great task which opens before us—the task of building a world civilisation for East and West, stable and secure, and a place where men and women can be happy and lead useful lives.

5.9 P.m.

Mr. Molson: A number of our early administrators in India, as can be seen in their papers, themselves looked forward to self-government being the ultimate culmination of our rule in India. Although it may not have been foreseen until within the last few weeks exactly how that ultimate stage was going to develop, it was quite obvious that it would come. When we instilled into the Indians the ideals of our political institutions, taught them our history, literature and language, it was inevitable that English ideas should germinate there and the Indian people should steadily become more and more desirous of self-government.
When history comes to be written, and when all the political controversy in this House and in India is forgotten, the actual constitutional development of India from about 1857 onwards will appear as an extraordinarily steady development towards the Bill which we are debating this afternoon. During their tenure of office, Viceroys of both the Liberal and Conservative Parties have introduced and passed legislation which has gradually developed self-governing institutions in India. Some hon. Members have spoken as though, during this time, the British Raj has been imposed upon a conquered country. As a matter of fact, throughout the 19th century it was a Raj in which the vast majority of Indians acquiesced. There were, I think, at no time more than about 2,000 officers in the Indian Civil Service and the police combined. The usual strength of the British garrison in India was only about 60,000, and I doubt whether it ever reached the figure of 100,000. During that time, therefore, it was no domination of aliens forced upon an unwilling country, but the unification and administration of a country with the acquiescence of its people.
It was really not till the first war, and very largely as the result of the activities of Mrs. Besant, to whom the hon. Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest) has


just referred, that the idea of self-government for India on democratic lines first started. There had been claims for the Indianisation of the Services, but very little had been said of self-government in India as such. It was not, in fact, an idea indigenous to the Indian sub-continent, but since that time the work of the British Raj has been greatly handicapped. The administration which was so creditable to this country and so advantageous to India during the 19th century, was possible only so long as there was acquiescence on the part of the ruled. When Lord Irwin went out as Viceroy in 1936, he did so with the intention of carrying out a great policy of agricultural development and reform, and one of the first things he did was to appoint Lord Linlithgow as chairman of the Royal Commission on Agriculture. Anyone, however, who reads the record of his viceroyalty will see that all these great schemes for social and economic betterment which he had in mind, had to be postponed because of the immense difficulty he had in keeping the administration going and dealing with political agitation.
I am not one of those who believe that only the Hindus desired self-government. The Muslims desired it in the same way, but the great difference, as it has worked out, was that whereas the Hindus thought of the British as being the alien oppressors, the Muslims tended to look into the future and to fear that the Hindus would be the alien oppressors over them. Therefore, in this Bill today, the Dominion of India may be regarded as an expression of the desire for self-government of the Hindus in India, and the Dominion of Pakistan as the expression of the demand for self-government by the Muslims. I think that one must say a word of regret that partition has become inevitable. Perhaps of all the gifts which Britain brought to India, the unification of the sub-continent was the greatest and most beneficial, but unfortunately, not for the first time in history, it has been found that the unification of the Indian sub-continent could be maintained only as long as that particular power which carried it out remained in control. I think that we are entitled to point to this partition of India as proof of the difficulties which we had in giving self-government to India. It is, indeed, the complete answer to those who say that we were delaying giving self-govern-

ment to India for motives of our own, and that the obstacles such as communal dissension to which we pointed were excuses and not reasons.
Self-government could come to India only at the price of partition but, regrettable as that is, as it seems to me we had no option in the matter. As long as we insisted that there should be agreement between the two communities before India received self-government, it put an instrument in the hands of Mr. Jinnah by which he was able to stand out for the concession of everything for which he chose to ask. In fact, it was possible thereby for him to obstruct the development of self-government in India unless all his demands were conceded. I feel, therefore, that a time came when there was no option for us but to say that if they wished to have self-government, there must be partition. We can contrast the peace, tranquility and prosperity of India over the last 100 years since British rule was established throughout the sub-continent, with what has happened in Europe. When one reflects also upon the handicaps of Europe in the matter of tariff barriers and every kind of economic obstruction of that kind, one contrasts the relatively happy condition of India, unified and administered under British rule, with the trials, tribulations and misfortunes of Europe, with its numerous competing and hostile sovereignties. Apparently, that is the price of nationalism. I am sure that countries which disrupted the Austro-Hungarian Empire never regretted obtaining their national independence, although it is very easy to prove that economically, Europe was far better off when that Empire existed.
It is an unforeseen and fortunate chance that when this last Bill comes before the House we are once more united, and that, I think, is the result of two fortunate changes which have taken place since the policy of the Government was announced on 10th February. In the first place, we are not now ourselves proposing to cut the painter. It is one thing for this country to say to any great dependency, "We certainly are not going to coerce you into remaining within the British Empire. If, having duly considered the matter, you choose to go out, we will in no way seek to restrain you." But it is quite another thing to say, as was said in the Government's statement


of policy in February, "We are suddenly going to bring this relationship to an end. We are suddenly going to evacuate the country, and to leave you to fend for yourselves. The immense advantage of the Bill over the earlier policy of His Majesty's Government is that now the whole onus of taking the initiative in the matter is to rest with the two newly-created Dominions.
The second point was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson). I felt tempted to agree that if the interminable discussions and wrangle in India are to be brought to an end, it was necessary for a date to be fixed. My right hon. Friend pointed out that what was really required was a fixed date for the decision one way or the other, whether India was to continue to be united, or was to be partitioned. With regard to fixing the date, he said:
Confine the expedient of the fixed date, to the single purpose of deciding whether or not it is going to be possible to find by agreement a central authority to whom to make over the powers of the State. Let the Government state their date in relation to that part of the problem, and having done so, then let them see how they would set about what, inevitably, must form the second stage of the process which the Government themselves have in contemplation, namely, the carrying out with all energy and speed of the transfer of the functions of Government to the new authority or set of authorities to be determined."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March. 1947; Vol 434, C 528.]
So the second great merit of the Bill is that after the new Dominions have been set up, there is an almost indefinite period during which they will be able to carry on the difficult and complicated negotiations which will be necessary for partitioning the country and the services which at present they enjoy in common. I trust that as a result of each of the two great communities being given a Dominion in which each one will be dominant, they will be willing to practise the broadest tolerance towards the other minorities. One of the traditions of Hinduism in the past is that it is tolerant of other religions.
It is a fortunate chance that when the final stage is reached today and the end of British domination in India has come, there are more hon. Members who will remember the great services which the Indian Army rendered to this country in

two world wars. British and Indian arms have fought, suffered and triumphed together in India for a long period. But these two wars have been episodes when the Indian Army covered itself with more glory than ever before, when far away from its home land and in climates to which Indian troops were not accustomed During the whole of our time in India there have never been wars when our need was as great as in the two world wars. This close connection comes to an end at a time when more people in this country than at any time previously, can remember with gratitude and admiration the contribution which Indians have made to the safety of the Empire.
So, at a time when our period of authority in India ends, we trust that a spiri of tolerance in the Governments of both the two Dominions will prevail, and that those Dominions will enjoy tranquillity, prosperity and happiness. In every matter in which this country can contribute to the happiness, safety and welfare of those Dominions, they will be able to rely upon the friendship and support of this country as much as they have done in the past.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. Carmichael: Let me say at the outset that I enter the Debate with considerable fear and trepidation. I would not have done so had we been debating details of the Bill. I know the situation in its broad sense, and I represent a party which must have a say in this final declaration in the British House of Commons. I feel that the party I represent has had a long and intimate association with Indians, both in this country and in India, in their struggle towards self-government. Whatever troubles may lie ahead for India, the Indian people as a whole must regard today as a very proud day in their history.
I speak as a back-bench Member of the House, even though I am actually standing in the front. I want to offer my congratulations to the Government. This is a very great piece of work that the Government have done for self-government. The principle of self-government has been accepted by many Parliaments in the past, but it has fallen to this Labour Government to bring the principle to fruition and to put the closure to British rule in India. I do not like


the use of the word "rule" in the Debate, because we have done much in India to develop a spirit of co-operation between the Indians and the people of this country. We have been reminded that we made a great contribution to the peace, tranquillity and prosperity of India. It would be idle to deny that during the time we have been in India there have been evidences of progress, but let us not make a mistake. There have been important features of our administration that every hon. Member would regret. I remember reading the early life of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) in which he wrote about the things they did in the Indian villages, for which we cannot take much credit.
It must be a very proud moment for the people of India and for hon. Members of this House, that the country is now to be two Dominions. I hope that with their divided responsibility they will, in the ultimate, recognise the great advantage of co-operation and come together in the course of time. This division has been desired by the people of India, and we have to accept it. At this stage, I say that it may well mean the awakening of the people of the East—and not the awakening I was taught to fear when I was much younger. It was always the feeling among Europeans and the people of these islands, that the awakening in the East would be a dangerous one, maybe one of intolerance and maybe one of challenge to Western civilisation. This awakening may be the opportunity for great progress, not only in the East, but throughout the world. Let this be said of the people of the East. We have very little to be proud of when we look at the state of Europe at the present time. Europe is in a very bad way, and whatever may be said of the peoples of the East, the responsibility for the bad position in Europe today rests on the shoulders of Western civilisation, and not on the people of the East.
I want to express my hope that as a result of this decision of the House of Commons, the Indian people will move forward holding out the hand of friendship to the people of Western civilisation. I am thoroughly satisfied that the people of this country have a very big contribution to make to the development of India, just as the people of India can make

considerable contribution to the people 01 this land of ours. I would like to remind the people responsible for the framing of the Bill of the date. It may be a coincidence, but the date is a unique one. It is 15th August. I know of one man who played a very considerable part in what was termed "agitational work" on behalf of the Indian people, who is derided and abused not only outside but in this House to this day. I refer to James Keir Hardie, who was born on 15th August. It is a very fitting ending to the old history of India, and a very good beginning to the new history of India, that independence will be granted to India on the birthday of James Keir Hardie.

5.33 P.m.

Mrs. Nichol: This is almost the last moment of the most tremendous Bill which has passed through this House for many years. I disagree with the hon. Member for Midlothian and Peebles (Lord John Hope) when he says that we are now bidding farewell to India. I do not feel that we are bidding farewell to India so much as setting her on her own feet and wishing her bon voyage. While in this House the atmosphere is calm and the benches are not well filled, the day is certainly not without its dramatic moments. For many of us it seems incredible that in this slim Bill which has been debated these two days, there is given to India the independence for which many of us have been struggling for over a quarter of a century. The fight for the independence of India has gone on from street corners and platforms all over the country for a great number of years. We look back today on many things connected with that struggle. We look back upon the early days of the struggle for India's freedom, when we were quite frank about what was happening in India, and said that India was being exploited and should have her freedom so that she might develop herself as a great and powerful nation.
Now India has her opportunity, and a great opportunity it will be. Many eloquent speeches have been made in this House on the question of India, not just in this Debate, but also in the other Debates which have preceded it. I am, thinking at the moment of the grand speech which the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) made last week, a speech full of wisdom and great knowledge


of India, and a speech of very great beauty. Some hon. Members opposite have been dwelling upon the great things which we have done for India. It is, of course, perfectly true that in 150 years we have done good things for India, but let us also remember the things we have taken out of India. Let us remember the things that that great population has contributed to us. We ought to be reminding the people of our country that the high standard of life they enjoyed in years gone by was due in part to the great things that came out of India, worked for by the Indian people at incredibly low standards of living for themselves.
I had the great good fortune to go to India just over a year ago. As I have said before, a few weeks in another country ought not to give anyone the right to be an authority on it. I would be the last one in the world to claim that, but it gives one a certain amount of feeling for the country. One came face to face with all that was still left to be done in India. There is education. I had a talk with Sir John Sargent while I was there. He talked of the great heartbreak he had had over the little he had been able to do. The schools in India are incredibly backward.

Earl Winterton: Will the hon. Lady allow me to interrupt her? It is not fair to the Indian Civil Service and to this House to say what she has said, because education has been a provincial subject and entirely in the hands of the Legislature for the last 22 years.

Mrs. Nichol: That may be true, but the fact remains that a stranger going to India sees it there in all its stark nakedness. A whole stretch of India has not the slightest opportunity of having the most elementary form of education. Again, there are the health services, the hospitals and all the great public services by which we in this country set such great store. It is true that we have done things for India, but there are many thing we have neglected to do for India.

Earl Winterton: It is very unfortunate that the hon. Lady has chosen this of all occasions on which to say these things. All the things she has mentioned are entirely in the hands of the Indians and the Legislature, and have been for 25 years. It is no good accusing us of being responsible.

Mrs. Nichol: Have I then to say that we have not the slightest responsibility—

Earl Winterton: Yes.

Mrs. Nichol: —for any of the things which have remained undeveloped in India?

Earl Winterton: Hon. Members cannot ask questions in this House about education or the health services of India, because those services are not within the purview of the Secretary of State.

Mrs. Nichol: All I can say is that there is a great opportunity for Indians to do it now that they have their country to themselves.

Earl Winterton: Hear, hear.

Mrs. Nichol: They have a tremendous task before them. I can only hope that in the new days of freedom they now have, they will seize their opportunity with both hands. At the same time, as an Englishwoman I feel very keenly the great responsibility we have in these matters whether we are technically responsible—as the right hon. Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) says—or not. We cannot divest ourselves of the responsibility for these matters. We cannot divest ourselves of the responsibility we have for those 400 million people who have been part of our Empire, over whose lives we have had control, and whose destinies have been in our hands.
A new chapter is starting for them in the field of trade unionism and in the field of the development of workers' organisation, and all this is now for them to develop. There is the coming of a free franchise, divested of property qualifications, which again is something they must settle for themselves. We are giving these full powers, and it is now their responsibility. This is their great opportunity, and in looking forward to the days which lie ahead, those of us who have seen what remains to be done in India can only hope that they are going to grasp their opportunities, and that their women and menfolk are going to combine to make of India what we know India can be. It will take a long time, and a long and bitter struggle lies ahead, but in looking back, I can only be thankful that this association with


India has had its glorious side. I would be the first to admit that, and we wish them God speed in the future.

5.41 p.m.

Sir Stanley Reed: I crave the indulgence of the House for a very few moments for some remarks on the final stages of this Bill. I sometimes wonder whether we really appreciate now, what this occasion means. When the President of the Board of Trade said that it means there will be no further discussion of Indian affairs on the Floor of the House, that was true. India is bound to loom large in its Commonwealth and international aspect; Indian affairs are now remitted to the Indian people. So ends an association with Parliament which began far more than a century ago; it started with the regulating Act of North, and even before that day.
Now we come to this final stage, and I wonder if the House would consider it an impertinence if I offered a personal reflection? When, some 40 years ago, it carne to me to be in a position where I might exercise a certain influence on public opinion, I asked myself what was the goal of our policy in India. I took counsel with everybody who, I thought, could speak with authority on the matter, with Governors, members of the Civil Service and other services, men in industry and men in commerce, and they all came to one definite emphatic conclusion. The goal of our policy must be the establishment of self-government in India. But it was too often said that this must be a cataclysmic change—a sudden transference. That was a position I could not accept; if the goal was determined, surely the road to it should be solidly constructed. For these reasons, it was a matter of personal pride to me to work in support of the Morley Minto Reforms; the Act of 1919; and the Act of 1935. In all those discussions it was borne in on me that when the day arrived and we could say to the Indian people, "Our work here is done, and we will remit the governance of the land to your hands," that would be the proudest day in the history of the Commonwealth and Empire. From that conclusion I have never resiled; in that conclusion I do not weaken now.
So this great day in the nisibry of our people and of the Commonwealth has

arrived, and this afternoon this House will take the final stage in remitting responsibility to the people of India. It is quite true to say that this stage has not been reached in quite the conditions we should like. We should like to have handed responsibility to a united India. Anybody who has traversed that country from Rameshwaram to Peshawar, from Karachi to Mandalay is quite unconscious of boundaries and borders, and must feel regret that there is this division which has been forced upon us through historical, racial, ethnical and also religious and economic conditions.
We must also have a sense of regret that the great Indian Army, which has stood forth as one of the greatest unifying forces, this great homogeneous body which fought those imperishable campaigns in North Africa, Abyssinia, Mesopotamia and the jungles of Burma, is to be divided. We ardently wish that it was not so. We could have profoundly desired that the Act of 1935, which was one of the greatest Acts in record of this historic Parliament and of this historic House, had come into immediate and full operation, containing within itself not only the core of unity but also the seeds of power to blossom into full responsible Government Now these changes have to take place in these different conditions. That does not alter our conviction. I take it on myself to say that I have a joyous heart in the great enterprise to which we are committed. I refuse most emphatically to admit that this is good bye to India, or that it is farewell. Whoever else may think that, I do not so regard it, and the hope to revisit that land is one of my cherished ambitions. No; it means the end of an epoch, the epoch of governance and the opening of a new epoch, the epoch of co-operation.
We, one and all, welcome wholeheartedly pledges of co-operation which have come from every side, and from every individual who has spoken in this House. What form is that co-operation to take? First, I ask that it should he based on understanding. It may be that very great and rapid changes will take place in India in the next few years. Enormous social and even religious reforms will have to be undertaken in the East. It is impossible in India to distinguish between, or to separate, the social system from


religion. Great reforms in the law relating to land, and the law of inheritance, and in other directions, which we could not undertake as a neutral Government, will have to be undertaken by India; they will need full and careful understanding on our part.
The next field of co-operation I suggest is in developing the economy of India. There is a population of 410 million, and the standard* of life must be raised immeasurably beyond the stage in which it is today. We will give to India all the help our people can render her in the realms of science, in the realm of industry and of economics; in technicians, and in the field of education. I hope that there will go from this House, and from whoever has the power to speak to them, a very earnest appeal to our people who are experts in these fields to regard their part in the future of India not entirely as a question of salary, leave, allowance and living conditions, but in the light of the part they can play in our Imperial heritage and in the spirit of service, and in the hope that in the fruits of their service they will be amply repaid. So we play our part, whoever we may be, in this great adventure, in confidence and satisfaction. It is not ours "to see the distant scene"; we can but take the step. That step we take today, in thankfulness and gratitude for the opportunity which has been given to us, pride in what our people have accomplished in the past, and the hope for what we will, in faith and co-operation, be able to achieve in the future, in co-operation with those Indians who have now undertaken the responsibility of the governance of their own land.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. Beverley Baxter: No one who has listened to the speeches of the last two days can fail to have been impressed by the dignity and even emotion which has characterised most of them. There was a slight altercation between the two Front Benches—the hon. Lady opposite and my noble Friend—but that did not seriously disturb the unanimity of approach to this Debate.

Earl Winterton: I think that "correction" would be a more happy word.

Mr. Baxter: My noble Friend is now extending the area of his criticism, but I think we are too old friends to quarrel.

It is as well, in these days of rather harsh party strife, that there should be occasions when this House speaks not so much as the Government and the Opposition, but as Parliament itself. This has been one of those occasions, and it has been moving and deeply impressive. I would like at this moment, if I might, to pay a tribute to the Prime Minister for what has been brought about. The good intent that was in his heart and the transparent honesty and sincerity of his approach must have played a great part in breaking down the suspicions and feuds and quarrels that have broken out so often. It is not often that I pay a tribute across the Floor of the House, but I ask the Prime Minister to accept that as being deeply sincere on my part.
The passing of this Indian Independence Bill makes the day at once a proud day and a sad one. I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) that it is a little like a son leaving the parental roof to become a full partner in his father's business. One sees him depart from the home circle with regret, but one welcomes him in business association as a full partner. To some extent that is why today is partly a sad day and partly a proud one, because the greatest joy a parent can have is to see his son come to man's estate and assume its responsibilities and position.
Considering this whole Measure, considering the speeches which have been made in the last two days, I feel that history will pay a great tribute to this country for what it has accomplished, not only in this Measure but across the Seven Seas. Certainly, our administration—if that is the correct word—in India, was never perfect. We never moved as fast a, we could have done; there were many things left undone. But could this agreement have been entered into unless our service in India had inculcated respect for law and the honesty of the courts? The wonder and genius of this island Kingdom is something which will engross historians as long as this world lasts. Last winter I was at the opening of Parliament in Canada. Canada is a senior Dominion, Canada is rich and powerful, and is almost in dual citizenship with the United States. It was by no means unimpressive, and it was moving as well, to see the Governor-General take his place to open


Parliament, and the way in which, with Mr. Mackenzie King, the Prime Minister, sitting there close to him—I agree with a rather subtle air of proprietorship—the Governor-General said, "My Ministers will do this and that." Canadians are proud of that, of consenting by their own will to that form, proud to be found in the traditions of the great Empire, knowing that they could walk out of it by the mere passing of a Parliamentary resolution.
I hope that the whole world looks on today and sees what is happening and what has been accomplished by the troubled people of this island Kingdom here. I sometimes think that those of us who were born in the outer Empire have a sharper understanding of what this country means, what her Empire means, than those who were born and educated and who live here. I add that to my tribute today. The one thing we have to realise is that the British Empire and Commonwealth, like all vital living things, is subject to change, and that no matter what side of the House we sit upon, it would be a great mistake to imagine that this is the last alteration, or that more changes will not come.
I sometimes think of the Empire, and I do not mean this entirely frivolously, as a club. We here, and the Dominions and the Commonwealth countries, are the ordinary senior members. We also have country members, as one might call the Colonies. We also have week-end members—Eire might almost qualify as a week-end member of the club—and I am not certain that we have not got foreign members. It has been said that in the days of the great Roman Empire no one could say where the influence of that Empire began and where it ended, it was so vast. Later on, in the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne the same thing was said; so powerful was its influence, where did it begin and where did it end? We can look upon the map and see those parts marked red. Those are the territorial limits of the British Empire, but I wonder if we ourselves realise how our influence spreads beyond that visible Empire to what might be called the invisible British Empire.
In the wisdom of our Lathers and grandfathers here, not very much praised in these days, we so tuned our economy

that other countries lived by reason of our wise dealings with them. The Argentine might be considered, or might have been considered a short time ago, as one of the foreign members of the British Empire. America itself, although this might not be entirely approved of by Colonel McCormick or even Mr. Hearst, was born of this mother. It was a painful birth and not altogether creditable to the mother, bat nevertheless the qualities were there. When one visits America now and sees how strong are those institutions which came down from Englishmen, I am not at all certain that if America made application in a proper form and got a proper proposer and seconder, we may not admit her as a foreign member of the British Empire. I only say this because we should tune our minds to the fact that this is a changing organism. We should not shut our eyes to any development. That is why I think the Government have done so well not to let this Indian affair come to an impasse but rather have found the way round which expresses democracy and hope.
In conclusion, I wish to say this. It is one thing for politicians in a subcontinent like India to make violent fanatical impassioned speeches with the legitimate idea of overthrowing the ruler under which they are living. That is one kind of responsibility. But it is quite another thing when they assume the humdrum day to day difficulties of administration. The Indian politicians have a big task before them because a public which has been fed upon heated appeals and passionate fanaticism, is not going to take lightly to the ordinary course of government. Also, the people of India, faced with the normal difficulties and the lack of spectacular qualities of what in effect was a political rebellion, may be open to subversive propaganda of a fiery nature from outside. With all the good wishes that have gone out today, I think we should say in this House that the Indian politicians have a very great responsibility to see that their soil and the minds of their people are kept clear from that menace from outside. This is a proud day for this country, for this mother of nations, this country of Britain; and if I echo the message of one of my hon. Friends to India: "Hail, farewell, and hail again, which he gave so eloquently


today, I would add to it the time-honoured cry:
Long live the British Empire and the Commonwealth.

6.4 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Williams: I suppose that different hon. Members suffer from different emotions on a day such as this. I imagine that the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) must be feeling very elated on this memorable day. We have all enjoyed his great contributions on this subject on more than one occasion. I should think that the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), with his long experience of India, is experiencing another form of elation. I feel sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the President of the Board of Trade and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister also are feeling very elated, not only because this is a great day for Britain and for this Parliament, but because it is a memorable day for India. I intervene in order to express my personal emotion. I think that my hon. and right hon. Friends who represent Welsh constituencies will forgive me if I take it upon myself to say that Wales will be second to none in its spirit of elation and thanksgiving on this great day in the history of India.
My mind goes back nearly 50 years to some of my first childhood recollections of the great sacrifices made by the people of Wales in order to try to educate the people and establish a relationship of good will between them and the people of this country and India. There is one corner of India, the hills of Khassi and the plains of Lushai, which will be ever green in the hearts of Welsh people. For over a century, the people of Wales have established there a Christian church. Hundreds of our men and women have sacrificed their lives in order to bring light and education, health, hospitals and schools into the lives of our Indian brethren there. Therefore, I teel that while we are paying tribute to the soldiers, sailors, statesmer and politicians who have made their contribution to the emancipation of India, it would not be too much for us to remember also the simple men and women of Christian faith who laid down their lives in the great sacrifice.
If I am permitted to make an appeal to the people of the future India I would say, "For God's sake do not throw overboard the great virtues and benefits which have resulted from the efforts of these great and lion-hearted men and women." I appeal to the Indians not to disturb the great friendship and friendliness which exists among the Christian community in the hills of Khassi and the plains of Lushai. Nothing but good can accrue from the great contact which has been established there. I served with the Indian Army in the 1914–18 war. Two Indian soldiers are responsible for the fact that I am able to be present today. They saved my life, and I am for ever grateful and thankful. Even at that time I felt that there was that quickening of the soul of the people of India, that great awakening. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to be in the House of Commons on this day of all days when that awakening has become a reality. It is something which will have its effect, not only upon this Parliament or this nation but upon the future of the whole world.
I would like to pay a humble tribute to the work of the Indian Civil Service. I have known indirectly of their work for a number of years though I have never been in that service. Nobody will ever be able to assess the amount of really good work in the interests of the Indian people which has been done by some of the best types in the Indian Civil Service. In common with every other hon. and right hon. Member, I wish India the best of luck in the future. I sincerely hope that its leaders will never be too small or too big to look for the real friends of India in this and other countries. Let them try to carry on in the tradition based on our faith. I wish them good luck and God speed in the great unknown experiment which is now opening itself before them.

6.10 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I am glad the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. W. R. Williams) spoke about the Welsh missionaries in India, and I think it was a word in season. I have been treated personally in Dr. Robert's Welsh hospital, and so I can pay a personal tribute to the great work which they are doing in India. I do not believe that the Prime Minister or the


President of the Board of Trade are feeling elated as has been suggested. I think they are feeling responsible, and are praying in their hearts for the success of the work—and it is a great work—which they have clone. So far as I remember, the Prime Minister is the only remaining Member in this House of the original Simon Commission, on which he went out to India, I think in 1928 or 1929, to study the problem on the spot for himself. He put in a great deal of hard work then, as the President of the Board of Trade did later.
How often have Indians said to me "You have given us that much, but you promised us independence from the time of Queen Victoria, and you always say, ' Not now, but at some future date.'" That future date has come, but I think there is a certain danger that we might turn ourselves into a mutual admiration society and shake ourselves by the hand too much. We must not do that before we are out of the wood. The situation reminds me of the Northern Ireland golf professional, who won the Open Championship at Hoylake the other day, and then went over to Northern Ireland to compete in the Championship there and was beaten. He said that the reason why he lost was that too many people had shaken him by the hand. I think that Lord Mountbatten might lose in the final round now, because we are all too busy shaking him by the hand too soon.
Who knows what might happen? Of course, every one prays that there will he no civil war, no bloodshed. I see that the right hon. and learned Attorney-General is present, and he knows who are the masters in this country, because he has said so, but he does not know who in future will be masters in India. I think the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) suggested that there was a danger of the Muslims being oppressed by the Hindus. I would not like to say that to a Muslim. He would look upon it as a very great insult. There is just as much chance of the Hindus being oppressed by the Muslims as of the Muslims by the Hindus. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) mentioned that we might have taken more care, before handing over the reins of government, of the interests of the, Anglo-Indians, the Scheduled Classes and the Princes. They will all have a

part to play in the near future of India. Caste is breaking down so fast in India that I think that the Princes are quite happy today to be mentioned in the same category as the Scheduled Classes. I also agree that we must give due credit to everybody who has taken part during the past 25 years in this progress in India, and I think we should include the right hon. Gentleman whom we used to know as the hon. Member for Chelsea and who is now Lord Templeton. Also the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. When I was in India, his name was mentioned a good many times to me with reverence and appreciation, and I think that, possibly, the reason was that he had the reputation in India of being an ascetic. It has been suggested to me that the President of the Board of Trade might eventually retire to a hermitage in the Himalayas. Indeed, some commercial people in this country would not object strongly if ho entered the hermitage now.
The danger as I see it, is whether not the Indians will he able to preserve law and order. An hon. Member on the other side mentioned the great Asiatic Congress which met in Delhi last winter, when it was stat that the Indians were accepted as the leaders of Asia. Unless the Indians preserve law and order in their own country, they certainly will not be the leaders in Asia or even in their own country. The responsibility is theirs and it is no use pretending that we could have great Debates in this House on the matter, when the responsibility lies fairly and squarely on their shoulders. Under their religion, Indians are told to look after their relations down to the 15th or 16th generation, and it is very difficult for such a religion to be absolutely impartial.
The hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Nicholson) mentioned his great love for India. When I meet an Indian, it is not a question of his love for me or my love for him. It is a question of my respect for him and his for me. I have many Indians among my friends, and one whom I recollect at this moment is as good as any of my friends among Europeans. I appreciate his courage, moral and physical, his honesty, and his cleverness, and his oratorical gifts, which are far greater than my own. What these Indians want from us is respect, not patronage of any-


kind. I like to be able to look Indians in the face and shake them by the hand. I recall some of the qualities of my personal friends among the Indians, their justice and fairmindedness, and so I hope that in future we may find these same qualities in the Governments of India and Pakistan.

6.18 p.m.

Earl Winterton: Before coming to the subject-matter of my speech, I would like to comment on the most admirable and moving speech of the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. W. R. Williams). If I may say so, it most accurately emphasised the spirit of the whole Debate. My hon. and gallant Friend who followed him, started on a more gloomy note, and I would only commend to him in these matters the advice of his famous ancestor, who told us confidently to "Smile, smile and smile." I should also like most sincerely to thank various hon. Members who have made most friendly references to my long connection with Indian Government, especially the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) and also the Prime Minister. I hope it will not be thought impertinent or effusive if I say that I, and I think all of us on this side of the House, pay our tribute to the persuasive patience that the Prime Minister has shown in all these negotiations.
It is indeed quite true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that I have had a very long connection with, and experience of, Indian administration. I think I was longer at the India Office than any Minister, except, perhaps, an uncle of mine, who was there for eight years; I was there for seven years. I was responsible for getting a dozen or more Bills through this House, and I was a member of the third Round Table Conference, and I do not know how many others. On more than one occasion I was asked if I would allow my name to be submitted to His Majesty for a Presidency Governorship. I said, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer," I think I am better here, and, therefore, I cannot accept it." The right hon. Gentleman also said in connection with Indian administration that he thought I would agree—I think I am giving the gist of his words—with what he had found when he first approached the Indian problem, namely, the great difference that

exists in India between the two major communities. I endorse that. I remember speaking in this House a quarter of a century ago, when I first introduced the Indian Estimates. On that occasion, I said that there was a great volcanic rift bisecting India which divides Hindus and Muslims. That is in addition to that between the depressed classes and the Hindus, or between the Sikhs and other races and creeds, and, also, in addition to the unbridgable gap between the primitive races and the high caste Brahmin. We should not ignore the immensity of the religious problems which face India.
For all those reasons, I have taken the view, not only for the last few months, but for a long time past—and here, perhaps, is a shade of difference not only between myself and right hon. and hon. Members opposite, but between myself and my right hon. Friend, whose work for India I so much admire, and some hon. Members on this side of the House on this main view—and have said so in debate, that partition was inevitable. I do not want to quote in full what the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Defence said in criticising my action—I will only mention one thing which he said—18 months ago. He said that much of what I had said the day before was intended to be helpful, but that he very much deprecated my reference to what I termed my view and belief that the "final and irrevocable rupture between Congress and the League" was now obvious. And the House cheered him. I was almost alone in holding that view. I said in reply, by way of interruption when the right hon. Gentleman gave way, that I had said that because of information which had reached me, and of which I would not give the source even today, that, for the last 18 months, partition has been inevitable in India.
Therefore, I welcome this Bill—for that reason among others—because it accepts the inevitable. The highest form of statesmanship is to accept what is inevitable, and not to try to get round it. Why is it inevitable? I think it is worth saying a word on the subject. All the authorities on India who have spoken in this Debate have made some reference to it, but have not dealt with it at any length. I will begin by saying that it is very difficult for a country like ours, only some 15 or 20 per cent. of whose inhabitants, even though we still call ourselves a Christian nation,


are actively interested in the institutional religion, which is the official religion of the country, or the one which the nation professes, to appreciate either religious fervour or religious fanaticism. But our ancestors, and, even more so, the ancestors of European nations, knew the meaning of such things, for they killed, burned or tortured thousands of people under the impulse of religious fervour. I dare say that more people have been killed in Europe during religious wars than were killed in the war which we have just gone through.
I say—and I think these words will be welcomed in India, because I am the first to have put this point so distinctly—that that should at least help us to understand what has been the cause in a subcontinent of, on the whole, a kindly people, of the horrors of what are euphemistically termed "communal riots," but which are really religious civil wars. People have been burned, tortured and outraged on an unprecedented scale in these socalled disturbances which, as I have said, are really civil wars. I would say to those who fervently believe in either, as millions of Indians do, that there is no point of contact in religious matters between Hinduism and Islam. The average person has not the least conception of what religion means to a Hindu or to a Muslim, because those things are a past part of our history in this country. But our ancestors would have understood it, and some who were present during the Prayer Book discussion would have understood it. Certainly the average person in this country does not understand it.
Each of those two great contrasting systems has produced many fine characters in the course of Indian history. But their environmental upbringing and background of adherence of these two creeds differs as much as does the North Pole from the tropical jungle of the Amazon. Hinduism is a great philosophy—a religion, one might say—securing the adherence of hundreds of millions of Indians. But nearly So million other Indians, with intensive and simple-minded devotion, believe its exact antithesis, that there is but one God and that Mahomet is his Prophet, his sole interpreter on earth. One has to live alone for a while with true Muslims, as I have to appreciate the fervour of that belief and their intense sincerity about it.
Therefore, why in a manner which is devoid, to some extent, of reality, talk as if this gulf between these two people could be bridged by a unitary system of government? To that extent, I entirely agree with those who have said that the only thing to do is what is now being done: Partition may bring peace to the warring communities for the simple reason that it gives security and hostages to both. I go further and say that, while I think partition will continue, the whole trend of things—indeed, everything that has been said in this Debate has been said in India lately—shows that there is a very real chance of the closest co-operation in things that really matter between the two Dominions provided only—and I will say this if I am the only voice in the House that does so—that they keep their separate identities in the way they have done up to now. Therefore, for all those reasons, I strongly welcome this Bill.
I only want to speak for a few more moments because the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is to follow me, and there is another very important matter to be discussed, but I think that a tribute should be paid to the Viceroy on this really historic occasion. I believe it is true to say that no man since Wellington, has been given such twin gifts of leadership in the military and constitutional fields. It is really a very remarkable thing that one of the greatest war leaders, on either side, in the recent war should have been taken from his military duties to be given a constitutional mission of the greatest delicacy. I doubt whether any right hon. Member on either of the Front Benches, or even my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition or the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, has ever been given a greater task than that given to Lord Mountbatten, who has solved it to the satisfaction of all men of good will in both countries.
Few statesmen have moulded and chiselled the policy of their country to the extent that Lord Mountbatten has done. I hope and believe that the new relationship will be both striking and constructive. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter), who spoke so eloquently of Empire relationship, that there is a constant growth of new ideas and associations within the ambit of the British Commonwealth and no one can


set any limits to that ambit or to those associations.
I see that the hon. Lady the Member for North Bradford (Mrs. Nichol) has returned, and I would like to refer to a point arising from her earlier remarks. I think it should be realised that with this Bill we are not handing over such services as education and public health to the new Governments or to the peoples of India, because they were handed over years ago. It is very necessary that that should be made clear. It is necessary that it should not be said, especially at this eleventh hour, that because education and public health are lacking in India, it is our fault. It may have been our fault originally, but it has not been our fault during the last 25 years.

Mrs. Nichol: Does the noble Lord suggest that we can divest ourselves of any shred of responsibility?

Earl Winterton: I would refer the hon. Lady to what I have just said. I said that during the last 25 years, under the system of provincial autonomy, we have not been responsible for it. The hon. Lady might say that we should have done more before, but I am talking of the last 25 years. We are not handing over those things, because they were handed over long before. No one can say that we are now giving the Indians (in this respect) an opportunity which they have not had for a quarter of a century.
I wish to support everything which my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) said on the subject of the civil servants, the States, the Scheduled Castes and the Indian Christians. I do not wish to make any further statement on the States. With regard to the civil servants, on the whole we have had satisfactory assurances. As we said in the course of the Committee stage yesterday, we hope His Majesty's Government will continue to do everything they can, in consultation with the new authorities, and I am very glad to see the right hon. Gentleman give an assenting nod of his head at the suggestion that everything will be done, in consultation with the new authorities, to stabilise and safeguard in every possible way the position of these people.
Then there is the question of the Scheduled Classes. One of the evil things

which Mr. Gandhi has done to India—and he has done many—was that he succeeded in bringing about the Poona Pact, because if it had not been for that, as was mentioned in the book which was written by my very good friend, Dr. Ambedkar, the great leader of the Scheduled Classes, these people would have enjoyed a much better franchise than they do today. But Mr. Gandhi threatened to fast unto death, and the Government of that day gave way. If Mr. Gandhi threatens to fast unto death after 15th August, it will no longer be the concern of the British Government, but of Mr. jinnah and Pandit Nehru. Mr. Gandhi is very much annoyed with this Bill. I have a quotation in which Mr. Gandhi said that we are leaving India to be a cockpit. All I can say is that few people have done more than Mr. Gandhi to make it a cockpit. He has shown no realisation of the greatness of the task accomplished by His Majesty's Government on the one hand and by Mr. Jinnah and Pandit Nehru on the other. It should be left to the Indian people to deal with him as he should be dealt with.
It is customary and almost compulsory on these occasions to indulge in some form of resounding platitude or platitudinous metaphor before one resumes one's seat. I am afraid that all the metaphors and platitudes have been used up by previous speakers, and I am not going to talk in broken, husky accents of what I feel about my life during the past 40 years in India. If I were to say that a new page was being turned over in the history of the sub-continent—which would be a platitude—I should have to confess that I am in great doubt as to what the writing on it will be. I hope it will be good. If I said that a new voyage was projected for the Indian ship of State, I should have regretfully to add that it has two captains with differing ideas as to the course. If I were, further, to use the greatest platitude of all—what I might call the kingpin of platitudes—and to say that I had carefully explored every avenue, I should be bound to confess that I have not the slightest idea, nor has anybody else, what is really at the end of it. But we must all hope that, wherever that avenue ends, it will offer a bright vista for the future. So, the House will be glad to know, I have at last succeeded in finding a platitude quite adequate for the occasion.
But, before I conclude, I would like to dc one thing which I think is not platitudinous, because it cannot be too often emphasised, and that is to plead for friendship between us and these two Indian unions. I would like to support what others have said from both sides of the House, namely, that it must be reciprocal and genuine on both sides, and on a level of equality, and I see no reason why it should not be. Because many Indian leaders are our former enemies, there is no reason why we should not become friends. Such a bouleversement should present no difficulties to a nation which, for six years of war, has played a major part in destroying one totalitarian police State and is now anxious, in the cause of peace, to be on terms of friendship with another. We have more in common with both Dominions than we have with a man in another capital in Europe. It is to our credit as a country that our admittedly strong moral viewpoint has always had, in external relationships, a certain elasticity. There is not the least reason why we should not have firm feelings of friendship and alliance with the leaders of the two Dominions. For generations many Indians and Britons have worked together with mutual respect and have died together in common heroism for the King Emperor. There are some who may sneer at loyalty to traditional symbols. The best among Eastern peoples do not. Like many of these former supporters of the King Emperor in India, I regret the breach in that symbolism, however inevitable it may be, which the passage of this Bill involves, but I hope for a new and fruitful relationship between the subcontinent and the Commonwealth.
Meanwhile, I should like to pay my humble tribute, not without some personal emotion, to the hundreds of Indian friends of mine with whom I worked when in office or commanded in action in the first desert war; and I should like—I am sure on behalf of the whole House; and I am sure the Prime Minister will support me in this—also to pay tribute to the countless thousands of Britons—Viceroys, Governors, civil servants, police, railwaymen, soldiers and civilians—who, for generations past, have worked and, in many cases, died for the twin interests of Britain and India. No cenotaph commemorates the majority of them; but I believe that they, and those with whom

they have worked in India, have fertilised and enriched the history of mankind.

6.41 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): I should like to thank the noble Lord and also the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) for their very kind words about myself personally. I do not intend to speak at any length tonight. I spoke at, perhaps, undue length on Second Reading, and I have really little to add to what I said then. I should, however, like to pay tribute both to the British and the Indians who have served in India and who have been working hard for what has been done to lead up to the day when India achieves complete self-government. What I should like to say would be this. I think that during these days this House has shown the way in which one can handle a great theme on a great occasion: and I should like to pay a tribute to all Members of the House, and particularly to Members of the Opposition, for the great self-control and forbearance that they have shown in helping to get this Bill through.
India is a subject that lends itself to expatiation. I have spoken at great length about India myself in former times, and I remember being rebuked by the noble Lord—quite justifiably—for the length and platitudinous character of a speech I made some years ago; and I dare say that I responded in kind myself. But there is in this House a great reservoir of knowledge on the subject of India. It came out throughout this Debate. There are hon. Members who have spent long years in India; there are numbers of hon. Members who have served in the Indian Forces; there have been hon. Members who have had long experience in office—like the noble Lord and like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler). The right hon. Gentleman can draw not only on his own personal studies, but on a parental and avuncular experience of governorship almost unequalled: he comes of a family famous in Indian annals.
It follows that, in a Bill such as this, which was necessarily, as.I say, rather an enabling Bill than a detailed Bill, there are a great many points on which Members could have spoken at great length; but I am grateful to everyone for realising the great urgency of this matter. The Viceroy, to whom the noble Lord


paid a well deserved tribute, has been handling an extremely difficult situation. So, may I say, have the leaders of the Indian parties. And I think the House quite willingly understood that we ought to cut short this trying time to as small an interval as possible. We really want to get the new Governments at work. Everything will depend on the statesmanship shown. I believe it will be forthcoming. I have had to follow these affairs for many years, and I have noticed, especially during the past few months, a far greater degree of realism, and a far greater appreciation of the fact that we have now passed away from the time of words, and that we have come to the time of deeds. Action has to be taken. I believe that in dealing with the practical problems that present themselves to Indian statesmen we shall be getting away from slogans, getting down to the practical point of co-operation.
I should like to say—and I am sure that in saying this I am speaking for everyone in this House and, indeed, for everyone in the country—that in the new state of affairs India can count on the utmost sympathy and help from the people of this country—help given without the slightest degree of patronage. Let me say again that all of us extend our warm friendship to the Indian peoples. Many of us have close friends amongst Indians. I have friends—Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and amongst the depressed classes. I hear of them from time to time, and, from time to time, I see them, and they have talked to me as friends; and now that this great idea of domination is being removed we can speak as friends and equals. I believe that we can continue to help India, and I am sure that India can do great service in helping the world.
I should like, finally, to draw the attention of the House to the magnitude of this experiment, which concerns 400 million human beings. To expect to get complete agreement at once among them is really a dream. It is suggested—some people do suggest it—that we could bring great masses of people in Europe into one polity. It is a very nice thing to do, but how difficult! Look at these age long animosities, at all these age long differences of religion. Well, we want to bring that polity about. In India

unity was brought about because it was superimposed from above all creeds and castes. When that was taken away, inevitably the old rivalries appeared again. But I believe that this long course of time in which the Indians—of different creeds, different castes, from different parts of the country—have worked together in Government, have fought side by side in campaigns, has brought about a real unity of Indians, and that this division will not mean disruption.
I think everyone of us realises that a complete unitary system of Government in India was impossible. We hoped that these differences might have found their full, legitimate scope in federation. The applying of federation is very difficult. It has seldom been done by splitting the unitary Government into a federation. It has come about by the union of separate partners who, having once felt their own independence, have then felt the need for collaboration. Therefore, I am not unhopeful that, in course of time, this separation may come to a larger unity, a federation in which the partners will have full scope, and, at the same time, unity. In parting with this Bill from this House, I do it not with a feeling of elation, but with a feeling of responsibility, some feeling of anxiety, but also with an unquenchable hope that these things will work out for the good of all the people of India.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

PRIVILEGES

Members of Parliament (Contractual Agreements)

Report [17th June] from the Committee of Privileges considered.

6.50 p.m.

The Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): I beg to move,
That this House agrees with the Report of the Committee of Privileges, and in particular declares that it is inconsistent with the dignity of the House, with the duty of a Member to his constituents, and with the maintenance of the privilege of freedom of speech, for any Member of this House to enter into any contractual agreement with an outside body, controlling or limiting the Member's complete independence and freedom of action in Parliament or stipulating that he shall act in any way as the representative Of such outside body


in regard to any matters to be transacted in Parliament; the duty of a Member being to his constituents and to the country as a whole, rather than to any particular section thereof.
I do not propose to embark upon a discussion of the whole procedings of the Committee of Privileges, but to confine my remarks to the fewest possible number, and to the question which is raised on the Order Paper, and to ask the House to accept the report of the Committee and the Motion with regard to the question of the action of hon. Members who are concerned with outside associations.
The question before the Committee of Privileges was whether certain members of the Civil Service Clerical Association were guilty of a breach of the privileges of this House in circumstances which I will very briefly summarise. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) was for many years the salaried general secretary of his union, and from May, 1943, up to his election to Parliament was the salaried Parliamentary general secretary of the Civil Service Clerical Association. These appointments were subject to an agreement which was terminable by the hon. Member, but not by the Association except under a somewhat elaborate procedure in the event of serious and wilful misconduct, of which I am sure the hon. Member would never be guilty. That statement which I have summarised is contained in paragraph 3, of the report, which I do not wish to quote.
The hon. Member said that from about the time of his re-election to Parliament in the General Election of 1945 criticism of his political activities by a section of the executive committee of his union became more marked, and suggestions were made that his employment by the union should be brought to an end. His complaint was that over a period of time there was a cumulative effect of what he called, to use his words, a sequence of events such as to bring pressure upon him to alter his conduct as a Member of this House, and to change the free expression of his views under the threat that, if he did not do so, his position as an official of the Association of which he has been a member for so long would be terminated or rendered intolerable. Your Committee state in their report the nature of the privilege involved in the present case in these words:

It is a breach of Privilege to take or to threaten action which is not merely calculated to effect the Member's course of action in Parliament, but is of a kind against which it is absolutely necessary that Members should be protected if they are to discharge their duties as such independently and without fear of punishment or hope of reward.
They conclude, to quote the report:
Although in the present case the language of the agreement between Mr. Brown and the Association was unfortunate in so far as it suggested that Mr. Brown was to represent the Association in Civil Service matters involving Parliamentary action,"—
they did not consider that he was—to quote the words of the Association—

Mr. Pickthorn: Which paragraph?

Mr. Greenwood: As a matter of fact, it is in the agreement, in one of the appendices. They did not consider that he was, in fact, fettered in his complete freedom of action in regard to such matters, and they did not think—and that appears in the evidence—that any breach of Privilege had occurred. Your Committee point out in their report, in paragraph 16, that the executive committee
appear to have been at pains to make clear that Mr. Brown was entitled to complete freedom and independence, and it was in order that there should be no doubt that this was so and, on the other hand, to make it manifest that the Association was not involved in or concerned with Mr. Brown's views, that the Executive Committee thought the contractual relationship ought, in the interest of the Association, to be terminated.
As the Association witnesses also pointed out, and as we have pointed out in the Committee's report, the agreement was remarkable in that the hon. Member could terminate it by notice, but the Association could not do so without his consent save, as I have already said, in the case of serious and wilful misconduct. One effect of this, as the witnesses of the Association pointed out, was that the threat to terminate was less serious than it would have been if the Association could have given the hon. Member notice. And, as your Committee say in their report:
it would seem strange that a Member who had voluntarily entered into an agreement subject to termination by an outside body should be able, so long as he remained a Member permanently, to preclude the outside body from exercising its right to terminate on the ground that to do so would involve a question of Privilege.
On the question of Privilege, I ask the House to endorse the Committee's report.


The report does, however, raise a general question which we think it will be the wish of the House to consider, and which is dealt with in the second part of the Motion now before the House. As to whether we should reject the report or not, I hope the House will make up its mind.
The second point is the question of agreements entered into between Members of the House and outside bodies..I refer to the case which is now before the House as one which does raise this problem in a somewhat acute form, but I raise it only for purposes of illustration. I do not, of course, propose to consider it except in relation to what the House may consider to be a fundamental point: The preservation of the complete independence and freedom of action of Members of Parliament.
The agreement may be open to criticisms in various respects, and Members are entitled to have their views about it; but, in so far as this particular agreement is concerned, it is a matter between the hon. Member for Rugby and the Association, and is not a matter for this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] I should not have thought so. I am saying that the agreement which had been agreed to between the hon. Member and his Association, whatever people may think about it, is not in question in this particular case of a breach of Privilege, and that obviously must stand. As I have already pointed out, an agreement of this kind does give rise to considerations which affect the House as a whole in case of agreements between Members of this House and outside bodies in the future. We are entitled to look at this problem now that it has been raised from the point of view of the independence of Parliament, and the dignity and freedom of the House of Commons. I say again, that I am not referring to this particular agreement or condemning the parties who made it, but trying to make the point that, having been raised it is a matter of primary importance for this House to deal with this question. If one looks at the report, the agreement between the hon. Member for Rugby and the Civil Service Clerical Association was, I think, entered into in all good faith.

Colonel Ropner: This is very important. Does the right hon. Gentleman contend that the entering into

of an agreement between an hon. Member and an outside body cannot, in itself, be a breach of Privilege?

Mr. Greenwood: I should not like to rule that it was a prima facie case—it would lie with Mr. Speaker. One can conceive of cases where agreements made between a Member of the House and an outside body might be regarded as a breach of Privilege of this House, but it is not for me so to rule. The question before the House tonight is whether, in the light of this particular case, any general guidance or declaration of principle should be laid down for the future. The particular provisions in the hon. Member's agreement, as Parliamentary general secretary to the Civil Service Clerical Association, to which exception has been taken, are that he:
shall deal with all questions arising in the work of the Association which require Par liamentary or political action;
and
shall not be entitled, in his political and Parliamentary activities to purport to represent the political views of the Association (if any) and he shall only represent the Association in so far as Civil Service questions are concerned.
It is further provided in the agreement that the hon. Member
shall be entitled to engage in his political activities with complete freedom.
In respect of his duties as Parliamentary general secretary to his Association, the hon. Member has been receiving a salary of round about £1,350 a year, the use of a motor car, an expense allowance of £250, the services of a private secretary, the use of accommodation and secretarial facilities at the Association's offices, the provision of a telephone at his home, and certain pension rights. I am not quoting this against the hon. Member at all, but as part of an argument. A distinction is drawn in the agreement between the political activities, in which he was to retain complete freedom, and his work for the Association on questions requiring—these are the terms of the agreement—"Parliamentary or political action." In his evidence before the Committee, the hon. Member argued that in fact—and I am very anxious to be scrupulously fair in this case—the freedom extended to Civil Service matters in Parliament, because of the complete identity of views between himself and the Association, of which, as he said in evidence, he was


"the father and the mother"—a very difficult biological problem to settle. In other words—and I want to give due weight to his argument—in his own words, he was not a "mandated delegate." He had been, as I understood his case, so associated with this organisation since its start that his authority was that of an elder statesman, rather than that of a "mother and father" at the same time. On the other hand, the Association, as I gather from the evidence, seemed to have taken a different view of the relationship. The honorary President of the Association, in answer to a question put by the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid), who asked whether the hon. Member for Rugby was bound to carry out the wishes of the Association in Civil Service matters, said:
That was our understanding and expectation of the arrangements between us.

Mr. Pickthorn: It would immensely facilitate the task of those who wish to debate this fairly, if the right hon. Gentleman would make reference to the numbers when quoting questions and answers. If it is impossible for the right hon. Gentleman to do that, I will not press him; but it would be of immense help to us to give the reference numbers.

Mr. Greenwood: I have a marked copy of the report. I am trying to keep down to the minimum the time I must occupy. The question which was put to Mr. McMillan, the President of the Association. was Question 378. I have quoted the terms of the agreement between them. As I said, when the President of the Association was asked whether a member of the Union was bound to carry out the wishes of the Association in Civil Service matters, he replied:
That was our understanding and expectation of the arrangements between us.
That that was so, was certainly suggested by the not inconsiderable character of the remuneration and other emoluments which the Association agreed to pay. I do not intend to go into this agreement, but would only say this: First, that there was at least room for doubt whether the agreement placed the hon. Member under any obligations to follow the Association's line when Civil Service matters, which might, incidentally, cover a very large field, came before Parliament. Secondly, I think that the House will agree that if this were the

effect of the agreement. it is open to objection in the terms of the Motion before the House.
This Motion seems to state a principle which—a case having arisen—it seems to be necessary to establish. I submit that it is in accordance with the views expressed by the Committee of Privileges, on page 25, paragraph 14, of their Report, when they say:
It has long been recognised, however"—
and I draw these words to the attention of the House—
that there are Members who received financial assistance from Associations of constituents or other outside bodies, and whilst those who enter into such arrangements must of course exercise great discretion to ensure that the arrangements do not involve the assertion or the exercise of any kind of control over the freedom of the Member concerned, your Committee do not think that the making of such payments in itself involves any breach of privilege.
But, as the Report goes on to say:
What … the outside body is certainly not entitled to do is to use the agreement or the payment as an instrument by which it controls or seeks to control, the conduct of a Member, or to punish him for what he has done as a Member.
The question before us is whether the House should now lay down a general doctrine deprecating, in the words of the Committee of Privileges, any arrangements with an outside body involving
the assertion or the exercise of any kind of control over the freedom of the Member concerned …
This House has lived through difficult days, and its honour is at stake. It would be undermining the dignity, the stature, and the power of this House if the general public were to come to believe that there were questionable relationships—I am not using that phrase in this particular case—between outside bodies and Members of this House, and I hope that in its deliberations this House will think tonight about its own future honour.

7.13 p.m.

Mr. W. J. Brown: I had hoped, Mr. Speaker, in this Debate, to limit myself to a brief personal statement of not more than a few minutes' duration, but the form of the Motion before the House, and what I think must inevitably be the character of the Debate upon it, makes it necessary that I should say more than I thought at an earlier stage would suffice to meet the case.
I could have wishes that the matter of the Motion had come before the House tonight in a rather different form from that in which it is brought to us For there are two issues covered by the Motion. One issue is whether we agree or disagree with the majority report of the Committee of Privileges—and about that there may be, and probably will be, conflicting views, cutting right across the party line. The second issue is whether the House thinks it desirable to lay down, in the form of a Motion, some kind of guidance relating to contractual obligations between Members of the House and outside bodies. I can conceive that there will be Members who would like to vote against the first part of the Motion, but would desire to vote for the second. I can conceive that there are Members who would desire to vote against the second part, yet might desire to vote for the first. And it would have been better, I think, if I may say so with respect, if this matter could have come to us in two Motions, one dealing with whether we want to accept the report or not, and the other dealing with this wider question. Then we could have had two Debates of a self-contained character. As it is, I rather fear that in this joint Motion we shall have an overflow of one aspect of the matter to another, not to the confusion of the Debate, because the House is clear-headed in these matters, but certainly to the disadvantage of clarity and continuity of discussion.
But whatever I would have wished, the Motion comes in this form and, therefore, I must deal with it as it is on the Order Paper. I would wish to say something about both halves of the Motion. The first half accepts the majority report of the Committee, which takes the view that, in the transactions between the honorary officers of my union and myself, what transpired did not constitute a breach of Privilege. I invoked the machinery of the Committee of Privileges; I appealed to that tribunal; I made my complaint to them; they have investigated the case and have pronounced judgment upon it. In those circumstances, it would ill become me either to criticise or to question the report of the Committee. The House has, in the volume before it, all the documents that were put in; it has the minutes of evidence; it has some knowledge of me, and, in short, it possesses all the raw

materials for judgment. In that respect all that I can do is humbly to submit this issue to the judgment of my fellow Members of Parliament, and that I do.
It is necessary that I should say something about the circumstances which gave rise to this issue, because they bear very sharply indeed upon the second half of the Motion. When I first came to this House, in 1929, I entered it as a member of the Labour Party, and I sat as a Labour Member. I was also a trade union man, receiving financial aid from my union. In that respect, my position was analogous to that occupied by many Members of this House today, as those on all sides of the House will readily agree. In that Parliament I had no contractual arrangements with my union specifically related to my work in Parliament, either governing or related to my work in Parliament. But the circumstance that there was no contractual arrangement at all did not prevent the strongest pressure being brought to bear upon me during that Parliament. In 1931 I left the Labour Party. I did that with great reluctance and after a good deal of mental struggle, because I thought that it was right for me to do so. I may have been right or wrong. But it is still possible for a man to change his party, or even to decide to stand on his own feet and to have no party. If, indeed, there had been no changes of party during the last 30 years, the other side of the House would be less fully tenanted than it is tonight.
When I decided to leave the Labour Party in 1931, there then ensued on the part of the Executive Committee of that association, an attempt to prevent me from standing for Parliament again. That was defeated overwhelmingly by the annual conference of the union. It was laid down that I was free to stand if I wanted to and that the union was not concerned with my political line. That was not of very great consequence then, because in 1931 I lost my seat, and it was not until 1942 that I returned to this House. When I returned, I did so with a very vivid recollection of what had happened in 1931. Then, although there had been no agreement about my Parliamentary work, pressure had been exerted. This time I was determined that there should bean agreement, and that it should be an agreement which made it utterly plain that I was to be free in my political


life. Therefore, in the agreement which was drawn up between me and my union, paragraph 3 stipulated:
Mr. W. J. Brown was to engage in his political activities with complete freedom in accordance with the decisions of the Annual Conference.
I want to stress that, it I may, because, if the House is to judge the positon, it is essential that this point should be understood. The whole point, pith, and purpose of that agreement, from my point of view, was to establish my political freedom. I meant to establish it because of my experience in an earlier Parliament when there had been no agreement at all. It is not the least irony of my life—a life which has not been wholly free from ironical circumstances—that an agreement designed to establish freedom should have been by implication cited as 2n agreement to limit it!
There was another thing that both my union and I were concerned to do in 1942, and that was to make it plain that neither of us accepted responsibility for the politics of the other. They did not want to be debited with my political line and I did not want to be credited—if that word be appropriate—with their political line; and so paragraph 6 of the document laid it down that nothing in the agreement should entitle me to purport to represent the political views of the Association. I was only to represent them in relation to Civil Service matters.
Play has been made in certain quarters with these last few words: "Shall only represent them on Civil Service matters." It has been suggested that these words imply an instruction to me, and an agreement by me, to act in the capacity of a mandated delegate on Civil Service matters. That is not a just construction of those words. The whole point of paragraph 6 of the document is not to instruct me to do something; it is to instruct me not to do something—not to purport to represent the political views of the Association. But from that prohibition there is a certain area, namely, Civil Service matters, which was exempted from the prohibition. I was fort bidden to say that I represented them on political matters. I was not forbidden to say that I represented them on Civil Service matters; and again and again in the procedings in this House I have announced, in speaking in Debates touching the Civil Service, what were the

views of the members of my association—just as miners have stated the views of miners, shop assistants, the views of shop assistants, teachers, the views of teachers, and so on through all the categories of the industries of this country. But there is all the difference in the world between not prohibiting a man from saying that he represented the association on Civil Service matters and, on the other hand, saying that he was a mandated delegate in respect of such matters. I have not so acted as a mandated delegate while I have been in the House of Commons. That is recognised by the majority report which says:
Your Committee do not consider that Mr. Brown was in fact fettered in his complete freedom of action in regard to such matters.
While no differences arose between me and my union on Civil Service matters—no differences arose in that field—there were wide differences in politics, and after the re-affiliation of my union to the Trades Union Congress that gap became very wide. They represented that my independent and sometimes critical attitude was an embarrassment to them. Finally, they presented me with an ultimatum:
Either you agree not to speak or vote except in accordance with Trades Union Congress and Labour Party policy, or we will take whatever steps we can to make it impossible for you to retain the Parliamentary secretaryship.
In the words of the minority report, the nature of the approach to me was:
Either cease your political activities, or go.
I need hardly say what my reaction was to that. I said bluntly and categorically that I would give no assurance of any kind to them, or to anyone else, that would limit my political freedom in any degree whatever.
There then followed an attempt to buy me out. A very large sum of the members' money—and the members had not been consulted about this—was proposed as a condition of bringing the agreement between us to an end. I declined to be bought out, as I had declined to be bullied in. Then the decision was taken to initiate steps to bring the Parliamentary secretaryship to an end. That decision, it seems to me, raises two issues: One touching the House; one a matter between me and my union. The matter between me and my union was whether that con-


tract should he brought to an end. I was perfectly prepared to do battle on that issue before the annual conference of my association, and I think I know pretty well what the result would have been. The other issue, it seems to me, concerned the House. I think that this combination of circumstances—the attempt to stop me speaking my mind, the attempt to buy me out, and the attempt to drive me out, collectively, constituted improper pressure on a Member. If that were so—and it is my understanding of the term—that constitutes a breach of the liberties of this House, and whatever view the House may take of the majority or minority report, I hope that it will not think that I was wrong in bringing that second issue to the notice of the House, and giving to the Committee of Privileges the opportunity of investigating and pronouncing on this matter.
Before I come to the second part of the Motion, there are three points on which I wish to touch which have been touched on by the right hon. Gentleman, and which if I do not get them out of the way, may introduce a certain amount of prejudice into the Debate. It has been said that my agreement with the union was unusual in that, while I was able to terminate it at my discretion, the Association could only terminate it by consent or in the event of wilful misconduct by me. If the circumstances are examined, I do not think that that provision of the agreement would be found to be at all extraordinary. This association caters for civil servants. An established civil servant is free to terminate his contract at any time, but the State is not free to dismiss an established civil servant except in the event of misconduct. I submit that there is nothing at all extraordinary about the Civil Service Association reproducing, in its agreements with their officials—and this does not apply only to me—the same kind of security of tenure as the members of the association themselves enjoy as established civil servants.
Nor is it extraordinary that I should have continued to receive emoluments from this association. It is a very common practice for trade unions to allow an officer, who is elected to this House, to continue to receive his union emoluments, in whole or in part. There is nothing uncommon about that, as hon.

Gentlemen opposite know. In my case, I had had up to the time that I first entered the House a long period of service —it is in all a total of about 35 years—and my union did not think it appropriate to signalise my entry into a wider field by taking away my union emoluments. That, I think, was to their credit, but certainly not to my discredit.
Finally, under this head it is suggested that I could have avoided the occasion of privilege by resigning the Parliamentary secretaryship. I certainly could. But why should I, who, by common consent, has carried out his part of the agreement faithfully, resign at the behest of the executive which had broken their part and which I regarded and still regard, as being wholly unrepresentative of the membership of the organisation? [Interruption.] I repeat that—an executive which I regarded, and still regard, as wholly unrepresentative of the membership. The test of that will come at the next conference, and although I am not overgiven to betting, I am prepared to have a wager if anyone is inclined to indulge in a little gamble on this subject.
What happened within my union—and I would ask trade union men opposite to take this point seriously because they know how serious this thing is—was to a large extent the result of penetration of the union by the Communists.

Mr. Gallacher: That is a good line to take.

Mr. Brown: Many trade union leaders in this country know just how serious is that problem. If they do not, they should look at the landscape in France, which ought to teach them, because there, the Communists' control the trade union movement, and they are making life impossible for a democratic Government with which everyone in this House ought to be in sympathy. It is my view that we should resist the Communist penetration—

Mr. Gallacher: Thirteen hundred pounds a year.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: On a point of Order. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) is engaged in what for him must be a difficult personal speech. Can we not have protection for a particular Member of this House who is engaged in such a task? Is it not in accordance with the traditions of this


House that protection should be afforded to such a Member? I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, as the guardian of the traditions of this House to rule upon this matter.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member was a little hasty for I had already turned to the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) and said, "Order, Order." I think, as the hon. Gentleman has just said, here is a difficult case being presented by an hon. Member of this House and he is entitled to be heard. It is our custom in Parliament to hear a case of this kind quietly when it is a difficult one, and not to spoil it by interruptions.

Mr. Gallacher: Further to that point of Order. I listened with the utmost silence to the hon. Member making his case, but I consider it is no part of his case to play up prejudices that exist in this House by dragging me and my colleague into this question.

Mr. Speaker: That is a matter of opinion, not a point of Order.

Mr. Brown: I was trying to make the point—and I think it was a fair one—that I hold certain views about the present position, and I do not think we can arrest Communist penetration by running away from it and arguing. I regret that the position arose. I did my best and the general secretary did his best to prevent it coming to a head. It was painful to me, as it must be to any trade union man to be in public conflict with the executive committee of his union. But I was satisfied that no other course would have met the requirements of the situation, and it is for this House to determine whether the evidence tendered by me, and endorsed by the Secretary of the association, or the evidence tendered on behalf of the honorary officers, bears the stamp of truth, and if so, what is the proper construction to place upon that evidence.
I turn now to the last half of the Motion which deprecates the entering into of
any contractual agreement with an outside body controlling or limiting the Member's complete independence and freedom of action in Parliament.
I think I am right when I say that that arose from the minority report—page xxxi—which is part of the report prepared by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery

(Mr. Davies), and which asks the House to pass a Resolution against contractual agreements. The minority report says:
The agreement with Mr. Brown led to difficulties because of his insistence on the clause giving him freedom in all political matters. In any new contractual agreement with a Member, the Association or any other outside body would, in their own interest, be bound to be less generous and to stipulate for a stricter control over any Member who agreed to act, in return for a salary, as their servant in the House of Commons
It will be seen that what the minority thinks is that, after this case, if any more contracts are allowed, there will be no freedom or less freedom to a Member of the House of Commons, and they suggest that something should be done about it. Let me say straight away that I will vote most heartily for any resolution which this House can pass which will have the effect of relieving Members hereafter from the kind of pressure brought to bear upon and resisted by me. It is too much to ask me to vote for the majority report, but if it is possible to split these two things up, then any resolution which would have that effect would command my support.
But I should be less than honest if I expressed the view that this Motion really goes to the heart of our problem. There are a very large number of Members of the House who have relations with outside bodies, from which they receive financial aid of one kind or another. In some cases as in mine, the relation is the subject of a written agreement, in other cases not. In some cases, as in mine, it is proclaimed to the world; in others, the world knows nothing about it. I hazard the guess that in only a minority of cases —and probably a small minority at that —do written contractual documents exist which govern the relations of Members and outside bodies.
It follows from that that if we are to deal only with contractual relations—unless a very wide term is given to that—then we shall be dealing with the smaller and, perhaps, the less important part of the problem. Indeed, we may find ourselves doing an injustice as between one side of the House and another. The rise of the modern Labour Party would have been difficult if not impossible but for the help given by trade unions, of which mine was one, to candidates and Members of Parliament. The last thing I want to do is to make it impossible for trade unions to


ensure the proper representation of various sections of workpeople in this House of Commons, and I hope that whoever replies for the Government—I imagine that it will be the Lord President of the Council —will deal with the point, because already there is apprehension about it. Yesterday morning I picked up the "Teacher's World" of 9th July. I will eliminate any names, because it is not part of my purpose to import names into this matter, but this is what that journal says:
The effort to establish this point of view"—
That is, the point of view of the Motion—
is significant for, indeed, it is an attitude which may prove to be awkward to the teachers' organisations. The National Union of Teachers has for two generations past given support to representatives in Parliament whose functions have been somewhat similar to those of Mr. W. J. Brown. If political change should result from a change of Government, a distinct possibility of a prohibition of such contracts is now foreshadowed. In that event an end.would be put to the possibility of such arrangements as have in the past afforded Parliamentary careers to Mr. So-and-so"—
I will not mention names—
and a number of other well-known ex-teachers. These men have had the right of free expression generally, while being restricted in matters relating to teachers and the affairs of the union, and they have usually honoured their obligations.
Although the details or form of the arrangements vary, what is true of the teachers' union is true of very many trade unions. I do not think it wrong that this should be so. For this House does not exist in a social vacuum. And it is proper that outside interests should find expression here, even though they be the interests of sections of the community. Indeed, the modern Labour Party, as its older members will remember, began as the "Labour Representation Committee," a body designed to secure Parliamentary representation for a section of the community at that time—40 or 50 years ago—grossly under-represented in this House. When matters affecting particular trades and professions are under discussion here we properly look to men who know those trades and professions to tell us their views and give us the benefit of their experience. What we are entitled to deplore is that any such arrangement as that should result in the financial relationship being used to bring pressure to bear on the Member in this House. It is that

to which we are entitled to object, and any help which my own struggle might have from any other quarter will he heartily welcomed in that regard.
But do not let us ignore the fact that there are dozens of arrangements in different parts of the House. On the whole, the trade union contract is likely to be the most public of the lot because it appears in many ways—in the annual balance sheet, the annual report, and so on. There are many agreements existing in this House to our knowledge which have never been made public knowledge at all. There is another point which is very important from the constitutional angle. The unit of electoral representation in Britain is the constituency, but the unit of financial organisation very often is not the constituency. It is an outside body, and that body may be a trade union, it may be a trade association, it may be an industrial interest or what not, so that where a man is elected to this House as the result of support from an outside body, it is inevitable that thereafter there should be a dual relationship. He has a relationship to his division, and he has a contract or relationship with the outside body—trade union, trade association or whatever it may be—with whose financial aid he has won his seat in this place.
I do not think that that is wrong—and again I repeat, that the rise of the modern Labour Party would have been impossible without it. What is to be deplored is when the outside body, the trade union, trade association or industrial interest, uses this element of financial aid to seek the control of the Member. But I want to say this. In my view the root of the matter does not lie in the existence of written or even unwritten contractual arrangements. It lies in the fact of a financial relationship between a Member and an outside body. And when we have passed our Resolution tonight do not let it be supposed for a moment that we have dealt with the heart or the root of this problem. Financial relationships will exist tomorrow whether this Motion goes through or not, and we ought not to conclude that we can dispose of this matter merely by passing a Resolution. I think that safeguards are to be looked for in three directions. The first lies in the character of Members themselves. If a Member has financial relations with an outside body, and he is susceptible to pressure, there is


always the danger that pressure, negative or positive, will be used and, therefore, in my view, no Member should have such a relationship unless he makes it sunclear—as I have tried to do in this document—that he retains his complete political freedom. He had better have that in writing, too, although even that will not necessarily save him from pressure. But if he has it in writing, he is in a much better position to resist pressure when it comes, as I did.
The second point is that, in my opinion, the most dangerous and insidious arrangements are not the public arrangements proclaimed to the world, but the secret arrangements of which the House and the world know nothing. I would make it obligatory upon Members to disclose the nature of any such financial arrangements both to their constituents and to this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] At last I have united both sides of the House. In fact, I think the danger is not so much in the contract. The relationship can be all that is decent, honourable and above board, but it is necessary that it should be known, so that when a man speaks in this House the House can make the necessary discount from what he says if the House thinks he is merely echoing the voice of an outside body.
The third thing relates to this House and to the Committee of Privileges. In the nature of things it has been difficult in the past, and it will be still more difficult in the future, to bring home a charge of breach of Privilege in relation to a charge of improper pressure upon a Member. I cannot recall a case in the past where an outside body has indited a letter to a Member of this House and has said, "You must do this" or "You must not do this," and "If you do not do what we tell you, we will punish and victimise you." I cannot remember a case like that. I am certain there will not be one in the future. It is inevitable that breach of Privilege must consist in a conjunction of events—the bringing of pressure, the resistance to pressure, and then the application of the bludgeon. The fact, that it is a conjunction of events, and not one single act, does not make it less a breach of the Privileges of this House.
It was my view that that conjunction of events had arisen in the case now under notice. I am sorry that the Com-

mittee is divided on that issue. The majority say, "Nay," and the minority say "Yea, there was a breach" That position I will not comment upon except to express my personal, deep sorrow that the division upon that matter should appear to follow party lines. I had hoped for a unanimous verdict from the Committee, which could have been invoked by any hon. Member hereafter to whom pressure was applied, as an example of what the House would do if pressure continued to be applied. I regret that I have not succeeded in getting that verdict, but the effect of this Debate may in some measure secure the result that I hoped to achieve, and which I believe other hon. Members hope also to achieve. For that reason, I welcome the Debate here tonight.
I do not regret that in this place I have sought frankly and openly to help the men and women with whom I have been associated all my life from the age of 15, the civil servants of this country. I find no conflict between doing that and serving the interests of my constituents in Rugby. My constituents in Rugby find no conflict either. I do not regret that I resisted pressure brought to bear upon me. I do not regret that I invoked the machine of Privilege because I thought it my duty so to do, not only in my interests, but in the interests of my fellow Members. And if, after 35 years' service, my connection with the organisation which I founded and have built up over the years, is to come to a premature end—and I think the membership will have something to say about that—then, Sir, I would sooner go out on this issue, standing for political liberty, this issue of resisting "vile pressure wrongfully applied," than on any other issue of which I can think. Sir, I thank you for the opportunity of making this statement, and I thank the House for its courtesy in listening to me.

7.54 P.m.

Mr. Pickthorn: I beg to move, in line 1 to leave out "agrees," and to insert "disagrees."
I think I can assist and reassure the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) on one particular at least, and that is his desire that the two halves of this Motion should be separated. It was the intention, and I think it is the effect, of the Motion which stands in my name


and the names of three of my hon. Friends, to make it possible to vote in the way which the hon. Member desires.
I am tempted to answer, or at any rate to comment upon, the two speeches which have been made, but on the whole I think it will be quicker if I try to state what seems to me to be the main question involved, referring, perhaps, to what has been said. I shall try to do it as shortly as I can, and I think I can promise the House to be dull. I hope hon. Members will do me the honour to try to listen to me. Privilege questions almost always turn either on interpretation of great principle or upon matters of rather fine distinction, and therefore, of all questions, they are perhaps the most difficult to deal with shortly. I really believe that if the House would allow me to talk for 10 or 12 hours, going through the Report and commenting on it page by page, most hon. Members would think that I was very largely right. I am not at all sure that in the 20 minutes or so I shall take, I can make plain what I am trying to say.
First, I should like to indicate what seems to be the great question—I am putting it in the form of four questions into which I think it can be broken up—involved in this matter. It is a great question. I think it is the greatest question of Privilege which the Committee of Privileges as we know it has ever dealt with. The Committee as it is now is a very modern thing. It dates from, I think, 1909. It has not, I think, had before it a question of the nature of Privilege of this magnitude. I am very desirous to avoid unnecessary controversy but I find it necessary to say that I am the more regretful of the form in which this Debate has happened. I am not sure, but I think there has never before been a matter of Privilege of this size which has not been debated at any desired length, even de die in diem. I think it is true that the Government, by the forms of their procedure or lack of procedure, however much they may take off the Whips, have rather tended to make what was rather a regrettable split in the Committee a split beween two sides of the House. They cannot wholly get rid of the Whip effect, from the form in which the thing comes —the acceptance of the majority report, with a rider, put before us by the three leading Members of His Majesty's

Government, and taken in time in which the Rule is suspended for Government Motions only. I do not want to labour that point unnecessarily but it is a pity that a question of this matter of Privilege could not have been made more a House of Commons matter. I hope that we shall keep it as much a House of Commons matter as we can.
Secondly, I think I quite understand that any Select Committee, and the Committee of Privileges perhaps more than others, is properly scrupulous to limit itself to what is remitted to it, and not to go outside to other matters. I may therefore be drawing too wide what seemed to me to be the question of principle involved in the case put before the Committee of Privileges, but I hope not. This is how I should draw it: First, Is it a breach of Privilege by a Member to enter into any agreement—I agree with the hon. Member for Rugby—explicit or implicit, I hope that the Government's rider when they say "contract" does not mean something written on vellum and sealed with the seal of the corporation. Of course, it is going to be far more difficult to deal with an implied contract or agreement, but I hope that we shall all agree that the essence of the matter is there, whether the contract is explicit or implicit. Is it a breach of Privilege to enter into an agreement explicit or implicit to limit the Member's Parliamentary action?
Second, the obvious converse: Is it a breach of Privilege on the part of the other party, the trade union or the limited liability company or whatever, by which the agreement may have been made? Third, if any such agreement is a breach of Privilege, then am I right in presuming—I think I must be—that any pressure brought even within the limits of the agreement is itself a breach of Privilege? That seems quite clearly to be the case. The—fourth of the questions into which the whole general question can be analysed is: If such an agreement is not breach of Privilege, or not so that it must be treated as void and non-existent, then is any attempt to put more pressure than the agreement purports to allow, a breach of Privilege? Those seem to me to be the four questions into which the general question involved in the facts, mostly agreed, partly disputed, may be divided.
First of all, therefore, I would invite the House—I cannot go through the thing and demonstrate exactly and minutely why—to say that these questions are not clearly, plainly and rightly answered in this Report. I do not think it could be said of any one of them that it is clearly, plainly, and rightly answered in this Report. If not, I would invite the House to agree with me that the Report should not be accepted.
I think we should all agree that the relations between a Member of Parliament arid a body or person from whom he may receive money or money's worth, or—and this I think is very important, especially in view of some of the examination—prestige and position—because the person concerned may well either on personal or political grounds attach more importance to them than even to money —the relations between that hon. Member and a body supplying him with these desirable things must always be very difficult. They seem to us—one never allows properly for the difficulties of one's grandfather—much more difficult than the old difficulties, and, I dare say, rightly. Certainly they are very different from what they were in the old days, because, in the main, of the development of trade unions and limited liability companies. I should be perfectly prepared at any time to discuss either of them particularly or generally, but at this time it is the trade union which is the matter in order. None of us would wish that any decision now taken should make those relations more difficult. As long as trade unions nominate only Socialists, I want to see them defeated at the polls, and everybody here does and properly may, but none of us wishes to see it made more difficult for trade unions to nominate candidates for Parliament.
If relations of the sort indicated must be difficult, clearly there will be borderiine cases, and those border-line cases will have to be decided one by one as they come up. Here is where I would ask for the agreement of the House, and especially the Front Bench opposite, with whom I am really trying to debate as reasonably and amiably as possible. I ask them to say that there are two extreme views in the matter. One extreme view would be that there should be no such relations, that no hon. Member should be in such relations with anyone outside. Both the

Report and the minority draft agree in dismissing that, and I think we dismiss that too. At the other extreme, I should have thought that the safe rule of thumb might be this—that where a Member of Parliament has an obligation to obey anyone else on a particular vote or class of votes, where his vote is involved in his receipt of money or money's worth, or prestige or position, from somebody outside and is conditional upon it, there we might have agreed that at that point the thing is intolerable and at that point a breach of Privilege arises. If the House agrees with me, the House must on this point disagree with the weakness of expression of the paragraphs—I have forgotten which—towards the end of the Report.
That the Committee was bound to consider this point can be shown by a very long string of quotations from the proceedings. I will not weary the House with them, although indeed to be honest however wearied the House might be, if I had the time, I should, because this thing cannot be discussed fully and fairly without reference to the questions in particular—[An HON. MEMBER: "We have read the Report."] I have no doubt that hon. Gentlemen have read it, and read it more intelligently and analytically than I have, but perhaps hon. Gentlemen will not have picked out the particular bits to which I want them to attend for a particular point in my argument. It is not really easy to debate this fully unless one goes through the details of the evidence. I could give a very long list of questions which showed strong evidence that the hon. Member in question was regarded as bound to vote for or against, for instance, a particular Clause in a Bill. That should have brought home to the Committee the absolute necessity of dealing with the point of principle which I last mentioned. I say that the point of principle is not made clear in the Report.
I think it is impossible to doubt, in view of the questions and answers, that the question did arise whether the agreement was in itself objectionable, whatever use was made of it. A plain answer to that question was required. There is no such plain answer in the Report, and therefore the Report should be rejected. I am much stronger in that opinion of mine for this reason. It was quite plain from the proceedings of the Committee that Members of the Committee as well as witnesses be-


fore it took, I thought, a rather extreme view, and what seemed to me the wrong view, in this matter, and what I think the House would generally agree to be the wrong view. If the House will look at Questions 21 to 23 I think it will see that an hon. Member of this House, the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell), for whom I may be permitted to express some personal affection and for whom the whole House has great respect, took it for granted that there was something anomalous about the relations between the particular hon. Member and his trade union, but that the anomaly was not in this particular hon. Member being limited by the relations but in his being less limited than was normal. Anybody who reads Questions 21 to 24 must see that is so.
If hon. Gentlemen will look at Question D96 they will see again another hon. Member, with, I believe, trade union experience, taking the view that the normal and proper relation to expect would be that a trade unionist and a Member of Parliament was limited in all his Parliamentary action and not only in some part of it. The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) said:
Just a minute. If you put forward that point of view, Mr. Brown, that your relationship to the Association was the same as that of any other Member to his particular Union, then does it not follow that something very different has taken place in the case of your actions …
and so on—
because you were not identical with them: only in matters affecting your organisation were you considered to be under their control ֵ it differentiated you from the other trade union representatives who are here?
And he underlined it at Question 198:
It is the same in one respect"—
his position and that of other trade union M.P.s—
… in representing your organisation but you have freedom in other matters which the other trades union representatives here have not got?
I think it is very clear that it was the duty of the Committee of Privilege to report with extreme frankness on the matter.

Mr. Neil Maclean: If the hon. Member reads that correctly he will find that I am not stating that

other hon. Members have not got that but that the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) could reasonably have it.

Mr. Pickthorn: I am very sorry it I am misleading the House. I thought I had read it exactly. I think I did. I did not intend to mislead in any way. I will not go on although there are lots more—incidentally the whole complaint about its being awfully embarrassing for a union if it cannot, however much it asseverates that the hon. Member is not speaking for it politically, shake off its connection with him—the whole of that assumption which was made by practically every witness and apparently every one of the majority of the Committee has the same tendency and effect as these specific questions I am reading out. There is one more which I wished to read, Question 241, where the same point is made. I do not want to go on with it at greater length. I hope that I have made that part of the matter plain. I say that there ought to have been a plain clear statement of what is the true view on that, and there is no such plain clear statement.
The next thing to which I wish to turn is from the conclusions of the report, to which I have been referring hitherto, to the argumentative machinery by which the conclusions were arrived at. Here again I should like to go through the lot if I could, but if hon. Members will look at page XI, paragraph g (a), they will see there what are called the findings of fact. I well understand that the Attorney-General knows better than I do the difference between fact and law and between fact and anything else. That sub-paragraph says:
the Executive Committee considered in good faith that the public activities of Mr. Brown … were injuriously affecting the interests of the Association…
It occurred to me to find out what the interests of the Association were. If the Attorney-General looks at the objects of the Association he will see that they are to promote the interests of its members, to regulate the conditions of their employment, benefits after death, etc., and in pursuance of those objects to co-operate with other societies. None of these things were affected in the least by the things objected to against the hon. Member


—[Interruption.]—I am sorry. I do not think that I can give way. I did not hear any articulate interruption and I think it will be quicker if I do not give way. Incidentally, this Association had no political affiliation at that time. I think indeed it still has not. Subparagraph 9 (c) of the findings of fact seems to me to he open to question, when it is found as a fact that both parties fully recognised that the agreement must have this or that, before termination. That seems to me to be going a long way and did, I think mislead the majority into assuming in the latter part of the argument that there was an agreement which was an effective one. If one recognises as a fact that an agreement is such and such, one has taken it for granted that there is an agreement which is in some sense a valid agreement. That is one question, whether this was a valid agreement which might have been raised and settled—I think it was, so to speak, half settled by innuendo in this paragraph 9 (c). This is another reason why we ought not to accept this report.
Similarly I think that the argument in paragraph 9 (e) about the Executive Committee being
entitled to consider that, so far from objecting to the matter being referred to the annual conference …",
that the hon. Member for Rugby invited action of a particular sort, by Conference, could be shown, I submit, to he inconsistent with the evidence. It cannot be said that a man has invited something if, when he is driven to the point at which this particular question has to be decided, he says "Very well, but you must do it in the constitutional way, and incidentally the way in which I shall be most likely to win," one cannot say that he was inviting the reference of that question. I think the evidence shows clearly that he was not.
This next point may be regarded by some as rather academic, but I think it has considerable long-term importance. The argument at the bottom of page XI and at the top of page XII would do great harm if adopted by this House and very great harm if adopted by this House nem. con. That is another reason why I propose to divide the House if I may. Page XI, paragraph 10—the test is:
… whether the right claimed as a privilege is one which is absolutely necessary for the due execution of the powers of Parliament.

That really is not a fair principle stated that way round. The fair way is to state if the other way round, that Privileges are something absolutely necessary for the due execution of the powers of Parliament, or, as I should prefer it, the due execution of the function of the House, there the matter is Privilege, not that anything must be Privilege if it is that. It is necessary to bear in mind another principle, that is to say, that the House cannot create Privilege; as the thing is stated it might give the impression that the House can create Privilege by simply stating that something is necessary to the power of Parliament. I say "power," because the draft changes from "powers" to "power" on the last page of the Report, I dare say inadvertently, but again with a slight shift of meaning. On the top of page XII there is a small point but one which may be of long-range importance. I refer to the second half of paragraph XI which says:
It is a breach of privilege to take or threaten action which is not merely calculated to affect the Member's course of action in Parliament, but is of a kind against which it is absolutely necessary that members should be protected.
I think that has a tendency to impute that a thing is not breach of Privilege in itself unless it is something against which protection is absolutely necessary. I think it did rather direct the later course of the argument in that direction. That is a mistake as must be apparent to anyone, without being learned in the matter, from the Tennant case, in which hon. Members will remember the matter was found to be trifling, such as could not affect anyone's judgment or vote in Parliament, but nevertheless it was held breach of Privilege. I think that is another minor but not inconsiderable reason for what I think is the weakness of the Conclusion's argument, and reason why I think that this Report should not be accepted.
Another question is raised off and on but never clearly settled and I think that this Report should be rejected if only because it does not settle the question, the question whether the Member is, so to speak estopped or precluded because he has entered into the original arrangement out of which have arisen the facts which are now said to be interfering with his due performance of his functions; that question was clearly raised over and over again, was not clearly stated by the Report


and so far as settled is, in my submission, wrongly settled by the Report. The Report infers that a man ought to be estopped, that he must
in general be taken to have accepted its possible termination as a matter which would not influence him in his parliamentary duties. …
I am quoting from page XIII, paragraph 15—and that he must therefore:
be taken to require no protection.…
I think that a gross misunderstanding of the nature of Privilege and a gross disservice to this House, if accepted by the House. Privilege is laid down in text books over and over again, and in a recent case, as inhering in any one Member only as part of the House because it is necessary for the House. It was so held by the Committee of Privileges in the Sandys case just before the war, it was held there that it is a part of the rights of a Member's constituents. It is a part, therefore, of the rights of the House and a part of the rights of constituents. Therefore to say that a Member has put himself out of court and that privilege cannot be used to make sure that he performs his functions to the House and his constituency is wrong.

Mr. Ungoed-Thomas (Llandaft and Barry): Here again, the point of the words is towards the end, which unfortunately the hon. Member did not read. The vital words are:
… require no protection against the bona fide attempt by the outside body to bring the relationship to an end

Mr. Pickthorn: That intervention points to what I have said about the necessity to speak at length on these matters. I could deal with that if I had time enough but I think it begs the whole question. I cannot read the whole thing. What I am trying to do as fairly as I can, is to be relevant. I think I am being fair. Those seem to me reasons why we cannot agree with the report. I have not dealt with the question, partly because it has been already implicitly well stated by the two speeches we have heard, and partly because my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) who is to second the Amendment, has the masterly and particular kind of logic required, I have not dealt with the point that agreement with the Report and acceptance of

the Government's rider are logically incompatible. I believe that anyone who has read the Report must be extremely dubious whether those two things can both be compatible. I therefore invite the House not to agree with the Report, but to accept the rider.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I beg to second the Amendment.
I think the House is indebted to the speakers for the three very able speeches to which we have listened. The question was put very clearly by the first Government speaker and we heard a speech of great ability from the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), and now we have heard a speech on this very difficult question of Privilege by the senior Burgess the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn), who probably knows more about that particular subject than anyone else in this country. I believe the House has an extremely difficult task, which I am perfectly certain hon. Members in all quarters mean to discharge to the best of their ability. The only allusion I make to the sharp division of opinion on the Committee of Privileges itself is for the purpose of showing how difficult were the questions which the Committee had to consider, and to show how great is the responsibility that consequently lies on the House for them to make up their minds on the merits.
As the House will have observed, after the Committee's report was published, the first Motion that appeared on the Order Paper was in the name of my hon. Friend the senior Burgess for Cambridge University and myself and my two hon. Friends who are supporting the Amendment tonight. That Motion invited the House to disagree with the Committee of Privileges, and went on to assert, as an affirmative proposition, what is in fact the heart of the second part of the Government's Motion tonight. The next thing that happened was that the Government in the Motion they put on the Order Paper slightly expanded, but did not essentially alter, the meaning of the second part of our Motion and expressed agreement, instead of disagreement, with the report of the Committee of Privileges.
I believe that if I had time I could show, and I hope hon. Members by studying the report themselves will come to the


conclusion, that if the Amendment which my hon. Friend has moved and which I am seconding is not adopted, the Motion will contain an internal contradiction, because it is simply not true that the second part of the Motion is contained in the report of the Committee of Privileges. Indeed, it comes expressly from paragraph 25 of the draft report prepared by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) which was specifically rejected by the majority who approved of the Committee's report. Whatever the wishes of the House may be, as regards guidance for the future there will be great obscurity in discovering how much of the report of the Committee of Privileges is agreed, and how much it is implied that they disagree when they adopt the subsequent part of the Government Motion. If our Amendment is adopted to disagree with the report of the Committee of Privileges, that of course does not imply disagreeing with every word of it. It is well known that the whole of the Committee of Privileges, and, I take it, the whole House, are agreed on the very important point that this is not a case where disciplinary action need be taken against anyone. There is much with which we all agree. Disagreement with the Report will not produce the difficulties that agreement with the Report will produce.
I expect the House would think that I was guilty of an exaggeration if I said that the Amendment was a drafting or consequential Amendment, but I say in all seriousness that it is quite literally consequential on the adoption of the second part of the Government's own Motion. There are also various affirmative reasons why the House should not agree to the Report. I cannot attempt to deal with them all, but if the House will bear with me, I will mention some of them. If I may turn to a matter to which my hon. Friend the senior Burgess for Cambridge University has alluded, I think that paragraph 10, with its general description of the nature and extent of Privilege, although I know its derivation is, as it stands, a little liable to mislead. May I read to the House a well-known passage from a leading case on Privilege tried in the courts. It is the well-known judgment of Lord Denman C. J. in the case of Stockdale v. Hansard, and it was cited by

the late Lord Hewart C. J. in the last case on Privilege that came before the courts:
The Commons of England are not invested with more of power and dignity by their legislative character than by that which they bear as the grand inquest of the nation. All the privileges that can be required for the energetic discharge of their duties inherent in that high trust are conceded without a murmur or a doubt.
That is clear law, recognised by the courts, and repeatedly recognised in cases of Privilege. I think, therefore, that paragraph 10 is a little weak in its allusion merely to the powers of Parliament, but if one goes on to read the whole treatment of this very difficult question of contractual relations, one sees that the Committee of Privileges have really given no useful guidance for the future. They have left the matter in considerable confusion. I believe that the Government are making a bona fide attempt to diminish that confusion by the second part of their Motion, but they have not made the matter entirely clear, as they would do if they accepted our Amendment.
I say at once that I agree with the passage in the minority draft which says quite clearly that this is a matter with which it is the duty of the House to deal and on which the House must give guidance. I will not trouble to quote the passage, but hon. Members will find it in the minority draft and I could produce it if required. I agree with what I am sure must have been in the minds of many hon. Members in the Committee of Privileges, and I would assure them that I appreciate the difficulty of their task and the sincerity with which I am perfectly certain all of them endeavoured to discharge it. They must have had in mind that it was their duty not to risk extending Privilege by deciding more than was necessary. With that desire I sympathise, but when a matter comes before the Committee of Privileges it is not only necessary to take care not to decide more than is necessary; it is equally necessary to take great care to decide as much as is necessary. Otherwise, the Committee will give no guidance to outside bodies or to hon. Members for the future.
I will give two or three examples of what I call lack of direction. If hon. Members will turn to paragraph 13, page xii, they will find that the final sentence of the first sub-paragraph is:


Equally it might be a breach of privilege for an outside body to use the fact that a Member had entered into an agreement with it or was receiving payments from it as a means of exerting pressure upon that Member to follow a particular course of conduct in his capacity as a Member.
To say that it "might be" a breach of Privilege, unless it is followed by some fairly clear guidance in some other paragraph, is not really giving that guidance to outside bodies to which they are entitled. Throughout paragraph 14, there are allusions to payments to Members and arrangements with Members. The whole effect of that paragraph is not only a very weak final result, but it makes the Committee of Privileges say something very much weaker on the subject of Parliamentary Privilege than has already been said in decisions of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords in extremely important cases. It would be regrettable if we put Parliamentary Privilege lower than it has already been put by the courts on this particular topic.
I am very anxious not to weary the House, but I would remind them of what I think they will admit is one very important case which will be familiar to some of the trade union Members though, as its main result has so long been reversed by Statute, they may not have looked at it lately. It contains matters of very great importance and usefulness to all hon Members in whatever part of the House they sit. I refer to the decision of the Court of Appeal and to certain speeches in the House of Lords in the Osborne case. The immediate matter that came up for decision in that case was whether trade unions could collect and administer funds for political purposes and to secure Parliamentary representation. It was decided, as the House will remember, that that was ultra vires the powers of trade unions as those powers existed under the then existing Acts. In so far as the decision depended on that point, it was reversed, as is mentioned in the course of this report of the Committee of Privileges, by the Trade Union Act, 1913, which expressly provides for the pursuit by trade unions of political objects and specifically enables them inter alia to spend money "on the maintenance of any person who is a Member of Parliament."
But there was another point of very great importance decided in that case

which, in my submission, is not only still law, but which I believe every hon. Member, in no matter what part of the House he sits, desires should still be the law. That other part was a matter that came out quite clearly in the judgments of Lords Justice Fletcher Moulton and Farwell in the Court of Appeal and in the speech of Lord Shaw of Dunfermline in the House of Lords. In a nutshell, what these judgments said was that any contract which fettered the full freedom of a Member of Parliament was void and unenforceable as contrary to public policy.
In so saying, they were, of course, adopting as a matter of law not only the very well known quotation, with which I shall not weary the House, of Burke in his address to the electors of Bristol, but also some very well known statements by some of our greatest lawyers. I will give two quotations. The Lord President who is to reply will be glad to see how closely the terms of the second part of the Government Motion were in fact anticipated by Blackstone and others some centuries ago. The Blackstone quotation is this:
Every Member, though chosen by one particular district, when elected and returned, serves for the whole realm. For the end of his coming thither is not particular, but general; not barely to advantage his constituents, but the common wealth.
The other is the statement of Coke in the Institutes:
And it is to be observed, though one be chosen for one particular county or borough, yet when he is returned and sits in Parliament he serveth for the whole realm.
The only other quotation which I will make on this part of my case comes from the judgment of Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton and is a passage which I believe states the law on these agreements, as I believe the vast majority of hon. Members of this House, no matter where they sit, desire that it shall be and shall remain:
The reason why such an agreement would be contrary to public policy is that the position of a representative is that of a man who has accepted a trust towards the public, and that any contract, whether for valuable consideration or otherwise, which binds him to exercise that trust in any other way than as on each occasion he conscientiously feels to be best in the public interest is illegal and void. This deep-seated principle of law is the basis of the illegality at common law of bribery at Parliamentary elections, for the power of voting for a representative is also a trust towards the public. Now to my mind it can


make no difference whether such a contract be that B shall vote as A tells him or as any body of third persons may decide. Every such agreement is tainted with the vice of the trustee binding himself contractually for valuable consideration that he will exercise a trust in the specified manner to he decided by considerations other than his own conscientious judgment at the time as to what is best in the interests of those for whom he is trustee.
Then follow these words, which are important:
And it is no answer to say that before or at the election he openly avowed his intention to be thus contractually fettered. The majority who electing him may be willing to permit it, but they cannot waive the rights in this respect of the minority.
My hon. Friend the senior Burgess has mentioned paragraph 15 of the Committee s report. I really defy anybody to read that passage without realising that the Committee was treating the individual merits of the hon. Member making the complaint as a relevant consideration. I am sure that the correct view is that most clearly stated in the memorandum of the Clerk of the House that Privilege belongs to the House as a whole, and that the merits or demerits of the hon. Member raising it are wholly irrelevant. I am very glad that the right hon. and learned Attorney-General agrees with that view, because I would suggest that there is a slight trip-up in Question 294. This is what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said to the hon. Member for Rugby:
I was only just anxious to make quite sure whether you were asking the Committee to take any penal action of any kind against the secretary or anybody at Newcastle.
That seems to me to be a complete misrepresentation of what the hon. Member for Rugby was trying to do. He was not asking for penal action against anybody, but was putting a case for the consideration of the Committee of Privileges, and anything that follows about his wishes for penal action has no relevance whatever to the case—

The Attorney-General (Sir Hartley Shaweross): If the hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me, may I say that we were considering, and we were only entitled to consider, the remit to us by the House? We were not entitled to lay down general principles of the law of Privilege, desirable as it may be that such principles should be laid down. We were asked to consider whether any improper pressure was brought to bear on the hon. Member for Rugby. We would very much have liked to codify the law

of Privilege, and this Debate will no doubt be very useful. That particular question was directed to whether the hon. Member felt that any pressure had been brought to bear upon him in that particular instance.

Mr. Strauss: I appreciate the distinction between the two questions which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has just raised. I do not take the view that the Committee was so limited as he suggests, but, in any event, whether it was or not, this House is not limited at the present moment. On the other point—I want to be fair to the right hon. and learned Gentleman—I think his question equally shows a misapprehension, if devoted to the limited purpose to which he says it was. It is not simply saying, "Do you feel you were under any pressure?", which might have been relevant, but "Are you asking for penal action against somebody else?" I believe that question shows a certain misapprehension of what, I think, is the true view the Committee should have taken, and which, on the whole, I believe they take.
I must deal with the possible breaches of Privilege in the present case. I am only going to deal with two, but they are both, of course, of great importance. I believe they were dealt with in both of the two opening speeches, and, indeed, by my hon. Friend. The first question is, Is the contract in this case itself objectionable? I do not believe that it was possible rightly to avoid an answer to that question. It is not possible to find in this report a paragraph which clearly shows how the Committee wished that question to be answered. There is the paragraph which was read out by the right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate, stating why, in this particular case, they thought that the agreement, though not happily worded, need not be treated as a breach. But then there is also that puzzling finding of fact in paragraph 9 (c):
That both the Executive Committee and Mr. Brown fully recognised that the agreement between Mr. Brown and the Association could only be terminated with Mr. Brown's free consent.
It is quite clear and obvious that, if that is accepted, all who follow after us will think that this House has clearly stated that that particular contract was a legal and enforceable contract. I think that


is of the utmost importance, and I am sure that the right hon. and learned Attorney-General will not differ from my view. If the correct construction of the contract is that it fetters the hon. Member in any way in the discharge of any part of his duties in this House, then that agreement is void by the common law of England. Therefore, to state as a finding of fact something that will be universally interpreted as showing that this contract was a good and enforceable contract is. I think, regrettable.

Mr. James Callaghan: For the sake of clarity, would the hon. and learned Member say whether he is here referring to the original contract? Surely, he would not contend that that was not enforceable?

Mr. Strauss: I am referring to what we all agree was the contract—the addendum, which is to be found set out on page IV.

Mr. Callaghan: But it is important to make that clear, because paragraph 9 (c) recognises that the agreement could only be terminated with the free consent of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Brown). A possible interpretation could be that we were referring to the original contract.

Mr. Strauss: Very properly, of course, the Committee are considering the contractual relationship between the parties; they are referring to the original contract as modified by the addendum.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne) rose—

Mr. Strauss: I would willingly yield to the hon. Gentleman, but I hope it will be realised that, if I do, it will involve my being more lengthy than I should otherwise be.

Mr. Silverman: The hon. and learned Gentleman has said that that particular passage begs the question as to whether the second agreement fettered the hon. Member or not. If that second agreement had fettered the hon. Member, then that agreement itself would have been a breach of Privilege, although not one which was referred by the Order of this House on this occasion to the Committee of Privileges.

Mr. Strauss: Part of what the non Member says is correct, of course. The main point of my observation was that the contract if it fettered the hon. Member was unenforceable, as being contrary to public policy, under the common law of England, and I agree with the hon. Member that then it is itself a breach of Privilege. I do not agree that it was possible for the Committee of Privileges to avoid dealing with that question, and, in fact, they have not avoided dealing with it. All they have done is to deal with it in contradictory passages, and that is the point I am making. In justice to the hon. Member for Rugby let me say that I am convinced that this was not intended to be a breach of Privilege by either of the contracting parties; nor, in fact, did any difference ever arise between the executive and the hon. Member on Civil Service matters. Nevertheless, I think it is arguable on the construction of the contract, and on some of the answers given in examination and cross-examination, that the hon. Member was fettered, and I do not think it would offend against any cause which the Government have at heart if they got rid of these ambiguities and had the clear statement of the latter half of their Motion. All these difficulties will arise, and we cannot avoid them, if they insist on our recording agreement with the Report of the Committee. I may say in passing, that Lord Shaw of Dunfermline made it quite clear that the fact that no differences would in fact arise would not be in any way decisive in deciding whether the contract was, in fact, such as to offend against public policy.
The other point of possible breach of Privilege is that which the Committee itself has endeavoured to decide, and that is the question of pressure. Was pressure exercised against the hon. Member for Rugby or not? Let me say at once, because I want to be absolutely fair, that certainly that was a matter as to which there was a certain amount of possibly conflicting evidence, and any Member of the House who has carefully studied the report is fully entitled to make up his own mind on that question of fact. I would only draw the attention of the House to a few facts and answers to questions which made me come to the conclusion that pressure was brought to bear on the hon. Member. First of all nobody will doubt that the hon. Member himself thought that pressure was


being brought to bear on him. I would refer to Question 318 on page 28 as giving the view of the hon. Member himself. Clearly, Mr. White completely supported him on that point and thought that pressure was brought to bear on the hon. Member. I will give the House the reference to a few questions which are decisive on this point. They are Questions 470, 537, 577 and 596. I do not know how many other Members wish to speak, and that is why I do not propose to give the details of those questions. These questions and others will leave the House in no doubt that the other witness who had the greatest knowledge of the facts also thought that pressure was being brought to bear. What did the executive of the union itself think? There are some interesting answers to questions given by the union representative himself. They are alluded to in some of the proceedings. In answer to a question by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery, Question 409:
That would be because his political views did not tally with those held by the Executive?
the answer was:
Were not in conformity with the general policy of the organisation.
There are several questions in that part of the Report dealing with the matter.
There are two other matters which I think throw a little light on the attitude of the executive. They are found in Questions 350 and 351. The question was raised why it was not sufficient to make it clear by public announcement that the hon. Member was not representing the Association at all in his ordinary political activities; and they made it clear that that was not good enough. Another question I cite for hon. Members so that they can make up their own minds what weight they should attach to it. That is Question 387. That was the question as to what was the attitude of the executive to the possible question of privilege. It was:
Did not Mr. Brown, on various occasions, point out to you that if you did certain things it would be a breach of Parliamentary Privilege?
The answer—in reply to the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid)—was:
Yes. It never occurred to us as an Executive as being a question which required us to examine our position. References were made to Privilege but our attitude to it was that of noting the observation but not regarding

it as being of sufficient weight to cause us to examine our position.

Hon. Members: What comes next?

The Attorney-General: Surely, the hon. and learned Gentleman does not wish to mislead the House? I hope he will read the next three questions?

Mr. Strauss: Does the House want me to read them?

The Attorney-General: It is always very dangerous, when one is examining the evidence of a witness, to isolate any particular question and answer. Judges have again and again—

Mr. Strauss: Really, I—

Hon. Members: Order.

The Attorney-General: The hon. and learned Gentleman was kind enough to give way, and I am making a quite fair point. I am sure he would wish to be fair to the House about it. Judges have said again and again that one must look at the whole evidence and get a general impression from that. The hon. and learned Gentleman has read one question. There are three other questions vitally relevant to the point he is making.

Mr. Strauss: I yielded to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I will always yield to a Member of the House. Hon. Members cannot say I do not yield. The only thing I resented about the last intervention was the suggestion that I was not going to read the questions. Of course I will read them. The only reason I have not read out more is, that I thought the more convenient thing would be to indicate them, and then, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman thought fit to do so, he could instruct his right hon. Friend in the matter when he replied. I do hope there is not going to be anything—[HON. MEMBERS: "Get on with it."] I am perfectly willing to get on. I will read the following question:
In your dealings with Mr. Brown, after the question of Privilege was raised by him or by anybody else, were you anxious that you should in no way commit a breach of Privilege?—Yes. We became very concerned then with the whole question of Privilege.
That, of course, was at a later date. The next questions were:
Did you get any legal advice?—Yes. Your lawyers told you, I suppose, what a breach of Privilege would be?—They told us what a breach of Privilege would be.


That happened after the matter had been raised in Parliament. I can quite understand that they then treated the matter seriously. I am not asking hon. Members to adopt my conclusions as their own. I ask them to read Question 387, and the answer, to see if they do not think the Executive came to the conclusion that this question of Privilege was not important. I am sure that they did not think it would be raised, and that led them to the conclusion, of course, that the question whether or not they brought pressure to bear on the hon. Member was unimportant. I suggest to the House that it was important.
I have mentioned Mr. White's views, and I have mentioned the views of the executive of the union. Let me now come to the view of the Committee of Privileges itself in their report. In the findings of fact in paragraph 9 (b) the report says:
the Committee did not intend to bring any pressure on Mr. Brown to change his views.
Then in paragraph 9 (f) the report says that the executive committee
intended so to conduct themselves as to avoid any violation of such privileges.
That is not a finding that there was no pressure; that is a finding that there was no guilty intention. The Committee of Privileges have said again and again: "First, we have to find the facts." On the facts I have given I suggest that hon. Members will come to the conclusion that pressure was, in fact, brought to bear on the hon. Member for Rugby.
I now wish to deal with two points which hon. Members opposite, who may have agreed with me in part so far, may find difficult. They may ask: If this agreement was itself objectionable, was it not very meritorious to terminate it, by whatever means? I think the answer to that is quite clear, whichever way this question of pressure is decided. I say that on the other points I have raised hon. Members ought to agree to our Amendment, because there are sufficient objections to this report, whichever way they decide the simple question of fact about pressure. But in deciding this question of fact, do not let hon. Members think that it is decided for them by the supposition that because the agreement may have been either unenforceable as contrary to public policy or a breach of

privilege, therefore they were entitled to use any method whatsoever to terminate it. Even under this Motion, if it is adopted tonight, there will still be borderline contracts in relation to which it will be, or may be, difficult to say whether they are breaches of Privilege or not. They may be tested in court, or by the Committee of Privileges, but that does not justify pressure being brought to bear on an hon. Member to influence his conduct in the House. The very fact that the contract itself is vague does not mean that any method of pressure can be used to bring that contract to an end.
There is one other matter which I must bring to the attention of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I am sorry to have been so long, but I have been forced to be longer than I intended by interruptions from hon. Members opposite. I think the House will do me the honour of saying that I have been relevant on an extremely difficult matter. If hon. Members desire to see how important this is, let them turn to paragraph 9 (a) of the report of the Committee of Privileges, where they will find as a finding of fact that, notwithstanding all the denials,
it was not always realised by the public that his appointment as Parliamentary General Secretary left him with complete freedom in political matters (other than Civil Service matters) so that his views by no means accurately represented the views of the Association.
Now think what it means. It means that the outside public can really believe that an hon. Member of this House might have an agreement which threatened his independence and limited the views that he could advance, and make them not his own views but the views of some outside body. The fact that it can be found by the Committee of Privileges that that belief was widespread makes it, in my submission, overwhelmingly important—

The Attorney-General: I am very sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Member again, but he really is making a false point. The Committee of Privileges found no such thing. The Committee of Privileges found that the executive committee of the Civil Service Clerical Association thought that, not that the Committee of Privileges thought it.

Mr. Strauss: And, of course, the Committee of Privileges found their views so reasonable that they were entitled to seek


to bring this agreement to an end. It they had found the idea wholly unreasonable they would not have had the least hesitation in saying so.

The Attorney-General: That is an entirely different point.

Mr. Strauss: If hon. Members look at the answers given by Mr. MacMillan in numbers 373 and 401, they will find that it is made quite clear, according to the evidence, that there was this widespread view that a Member of Parliament might he fettered. I say that it is overwhelmingly in the interests of every quarter of this House, and of the survival of our Parliamentary democracy, that it should be made absolutely clear, by a Resolution of this House, that no such view must be entertained in future. I cannot urge the House too strongly, if it is agreed that this is the case, to adopt a Resolution to free the matter from ambiguity. Unless we differ from the Committee of Privileges but adopt the rest of the Government's Motion, utter confusion will be brought to bear; because if we declare in the first part that we approve the Report of the Committee, the last passage entirely contradicts it. So great is the importance to Members of the House and to our Constitution, that I hope the Government, at this late hour, may decide that there is no reason at all why they should not accept this Amendment. If this Amendment were adopted, a perfectly clear Resolution would be passed. It is perfectly true that other evils of a different kind may arise in future, but one matter at least will have been made clear if this course is adopted.

9.3 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan: This has started to resolve itself into a lawyer's Debate. I am not a distinguished lawyer, nor am I a distinguished constitutional historian, but, as a layman, I hope that I can indicate what my approach is to the matter, from the point of view of common sense, and I trust that I shall be able to do so in somewhat less time than was occupied by the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). The circumstances we have to take into account tonight are those which affect most Members of the House when they enter their Parliamentary work.
It is clear that these circumstances have changed considerably during the

last 100 years. Most Members come from a profession, an occupation, or an employment. They are not gentlemen of leisure, beholden to no one before they get here, except to their country seats, and beholden to no one when they leave; they are people who come from a job, and to the extent that they have come from a job, it does influence them in their approach to their work here. It matters not whether or not there is a financial relationship between the job that a Member of Parliament was doing before he came here. What is of importance is that he is bringing to the House of Commons a varied experience, knowledge and a cumulative weight of information about what he has done, which he is bound to use in the course of his work as a Member of Parliament, and it would be denying the House of Commons something that is of value, if he did not use that information and knowledge which he has acquired.
Now, when he comes here this is the question: Should he give up his work altogether, renounce his contracts, and enter upon a monastic political life? We have it on the authority of the Lord President of the Council that it is desirable that Members of this House should have other occupations, that they should keep themselves in touch and in line with the main stream of industry, business, trade union work, or whatever it may be. That is the view which is commonly held here, although we all take the view that a Minister's first duty must be to this House. I draw the distinction, at the start, between the Member who comes here from a job which he has done before he became a Member, and continues to do that job once he has entered the House, in a modified form may be, and the Member, who having got here, sells the position he has to an organisation in return for financial or pecuniary reward.
The hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) looks down his nose; it is a difficult thing to do. I am not stating anything that is offensive to any Member. All I am saying is that I draw a clear distinction between the Member who has had a job before he got here, and carries it on, and the Member who, once he has got here, sells himself to an organisation, which is something we should all deplore. Inevitably, there is bound to


be influence exerted on a Member, particularly if he has been an employee of an organisation or company, because he is only here for a short time perhaps. We all know the fortunes of Elections. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Members opposite cheer that remark, and I can only say that they certainly should know. I like controversy as a rule, but perhaps on this occasion I should try to steer clear. I will do my best. Inevitably, such a man coming from a job, maybe returning to a job, will have remembrances of the past and expectations of the future, and to that extent he cannot resist the influence that his thoughts of the past and future will have upon him. But it is wholly undesirable that such a man should enter into a contract with his old employers, and maybe his new employers, when he leaves, to represent them in what they require politically in this House. In other words, there must be no contract, explicit or implicit, between him and his old employers or any other person. That puts anybody who enters into an agreement into a dilemma if he is outside this House. He either buys a pig in a poke, because the agreement cannot be enforced, or lays himself open to the charge that he is creating a breach of Privilege if an endeavour is made to bring such an agreement to an end once it has been entered into.
The hon. and learned Member for the English Universities got himself rather tied up. If an agreement is undesirable when it is entered into, then undesirable consequences are bound to flow from it. As I understood the hon. and learned Member, who quoted a judgment from someone very old and very dead, he said that any contract is unenforceable if it binds a Member. I agree. It must follow from that that the contract into which the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) entered not only was unenforceable, but was probably a breach of Privilege. If that is his view, it is quite clear that if one starts off by having something that is undesirable as this was, and may be a breach of Privilege, then any actions that flow from it are themselves almost certainly bound to be a breach of Privilege. As a layman, I should have thought that an attempt to bring an agreement to a conclusion if the original agreement in itself was a breach of Privilege was no

more and no less venal than the original action.

Mr. H. Strauss: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not listen to me when I was dealing with that particular argument. I said that the legal effect of the agreement was a matter for argument, but I also said that if on its true construction the agreement did fetter the hon. Member then it was absolutely void and unenforceable and probably a breach of Privilege as well. I went on to add that the agreement might not be enforceable or might even be a breach of Privilege, but even those two grounds did not justify any pressure being brought to bear.

Mr. Callaghan: I only followed out the the point that has been made on both sides, and I still adhere to the view that if one makes an agreement that is in itself a breach of Privilege—nd I take it from the minority report, which the hon. and learned Member originally supported, that he thought this was a breach of Privilege—

Mr. H. Strauss: indicated dissent.

Mr. Callagan: The hon. and learned Member shakes his head. I take it that anything that follows from it must of itself be objectionable and undesirable. The case of the hon. Member for Rugby does raise the possibility of pressure. One is a positive form of pressure, and the other is a negative form. The positive form of pressure is the conversation that took place between the hon. Member for Rugby and certain officers of the Civil Service Clerical Association as to whether he would not modify his point of view. I think that I would make up my mind that pressure had been exerted on the hon. Member for Rugby. That would be my conclusion on these facts. The second type of pressure is the negative type, as to whether, if one threatens to bring an agreement to an end, one did not in fact by that very action bring a more subtle form of pressure to bear on the man with whom one was in contract, and, to that extent, compel him to change his mind. I would say that also was true, but I do not draw from it the conclusions drawn earlier in this Debate.
As I see it, the Civil Service Clerical Association must be entitled to decide


who is best to represent it in the fields in which it desires representation. It seems to me that they desired representation, they sought representation, and they got representation. Indeed, if we take paragraph 10 dealing with the statement of Mr. McMillan, the President of the Civil Service Clerical Association, on page 82, he said quite clearly:
While Mr. Brown owes no duty to the Association for his political views on matters other than Civil Service matters, it is submitted that …
That can only mean, it one reverses the sentence, that whilst he owed them no duty for his political views he certainly owed them a duty for his Civil Service views, and my opinion is that the association must be free at any point of time to decide that that form of duty which they claim that the hon. Member for Rugby owed to them could be brought to an end. I go on from that to say that it is of vital importance for any trade union to be in a position to say as, indeed, Mr. McMillan said in the course of his evidence:
We thought it more desirable to exercise our pressure through the medium of the T.U.C. than we did through the medium of a seat in the House of Commons.
That seems to be a very sensible line for a trade union to take, or an arguable line, at least, for them to take. What we have to remember in this case is that when the hon. Member for Rugby became their Parliamentary general secretary the organisation was not affiliated to the T.U.C. and could not be affiliated to the T.U.C. It was not until they became affiliated that this issue could and did arise. I take the view that in a case of this kind where a contract has been concluded it should be open to the association to say, "Because of the change in circumstances we think our representation as an organisation can be better served through the medium of the T.U.C. than through the medium of the hon. Member for Rugby."
We next come to the point as to whether the speeches of the hon. Member for Rugby which were the subject of the pressure—whether proper or improper—were devoted to matters which were purely political, and on that subject there can be only one answer. It is that his speeches of which the association complained were matters which vitally affected the interests of the association.

To illustrate that I would turn to Questions 344 to 346 in the Report in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) asked Mr. McMillan certain specific: questions as to what caused embarrassment to the organisation. There were two minor matters and then we come to Question 344.
The third matter"—
that is, their embarrassment—
his votes and speeches on the Trades Disputes Act, 1946—was that a matter which caused difficulty and embarrassment?
The answer was, "Definitely, yes.'
Question 345:
The fourth, his statements on splinter and breakaway Unions?
Answer, "Yes."
And Question 346:
And the fifth, his general dissent from opinions expressed by the T.U.C.
Answer, "Yes."
It is clear that the speeches to which the Civil Service Clerical Association took exception were speeches which vitally concerned their interests as an organisation. There can be no other deduction drawn from those answers and here, of course, we get into the dilemma that the agreement was theoretically impossible to carry out, because it is quite impossible to say where a purely trade union Civil Service interest merges into a political interest. One cannot draw a clear line of distinction between the two.
By way of illustration let me just go across the Channel to France for a moment where the Civil Service have been on the point of striking. Suppose the hon. Member for Rugby were a member of that Assembly. Would it have been his duty to his association to have prosecuted their wage claims to the point of unbalancing the French budget, with all the possible consequences, or should he not have said, "This is a political matter and on this I am bound to vote as a politician without reference to the interests of the Civil Service." One can multiply those interests indefinitely, because they flow and that is why I say that the overlap between political and Civil Service issues automatically made it impossible to carry out this agreement. The second reason which automatically made it impossible to carry out this agreement was the fact that views which were repugnant


to the organisation which was employing the hon. Member for Rugby, if expressed sufficiently strongly and freely on matters other than Civil Service matters, were bound in the course of time to affect the relationships between the two people in contact on the purely Civil Service matters. But in point of fact that theoretically impossible situation was evolved because of the personality of the hon. Member for Rugby, and Mr. McMillan told the Committee of Privileges that they knew the hon. Member nearly as well as the Civil Service Clerical Association. What he meant was, of course, that it is impossible to bend the hon. Member's line even if one wanted to; he is a law unto himself and he always has been in the Civil Service trade union movement, and no amount of pressure, if applied, could possibly make him change. That was recognised, and in consequence the agreement was made and was carried out although theoretically and logically it was not possible.
I think that one or two points emerge. We should have a clear expression from the House tonight—and I hope that the Lord President of the Council will give us some guidance—as to whether contracts and agreement of this kind should or should not continue, and whether those that are in existence—I refer to the explicit contracts—should be overhauled or not. In my view they should be, but I think the House should express its view and, as I have said, I hope that we shall have some guidance from the Lord President of the Council as to the views of the Government. As the hon. Member for Rugby said this is, in the last resort, the test of a man's character. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Coventry (Mr. Crossman) said last weekend, every Member must be his own Committee of Privileges on an issue of this kind, and we cannot possibly attempt to define all the situations and all the nuances which might apply in these cases. But what we can and must do is to re-define Privilege as we move on.
Privilege today clearly cannot be the same as the Privilege that existed in the days of the pocket borough. What then was the situation? To whom did the Member owe his allegiance before 1832? What was the pressure which might have been brought to bear upon him at that time? We have now reached a stage

where the Labour movement has grown up. In the days when the original pioneers of the Labour party came to this House as the old L.R.C. with no payment of any sort, the only way in which their entry could be gained and by which they could be supported was by this method. It was the way in which we secured a foothold and in which we have climbed up. But that is not the situation today. There is now adequate payment for Members—on a very modest standard of living indeed, but, nevertheless, it exists.
I do not rule out the payment of sums of money to a Member either in recognition of past services or because an organisation desires to continue to pay him in expectation of his eventual return. That is a matter for the hon. Member. What I do say is that there should be no contract in existence at all that binds the Member to serve any organisation. It is that principle upon which we ought to decide, and it is for that reason that I think we must support the Motion which appears on the Order Paper in the name of the Government. I would have preferred it to have been divided into two for the sake of the consciences of some hon. Members opposite, though, fortunately, I can support the Government on both issues.
I do not agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman the junior Member for the Combined English Universities who said that confusion would be confounded if we did not support his Amendment. What will be the situation if we say we disagree with the majority Report? Surely, it will be that we are saying that the organisation may not bring this contract to an end. It is inherent in the whole of my case that the organisation must be at liberty to do so if they so desire, and if it can be carried through in accordance with the terms of the agreement as originally set down. For these and many other reasons, I agree with the Government and disagree with the point of view put by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, and I trust that the Debate this evening will be a means of preserving and widening the integrity of all hon. Members of this House in their first and main service to their constituents.

9.24 p.m.

Mr. Hopkin Morris: I would limit what I have to say to that part of the report on which all are agreed.


We are all agreed about such parts as relate to the contract entered into by the hon. Member with the Civil Service Clerical Association. I understand that we are all agreed that the hon Member was to be free to express his own political views on matters outside those concerning the Civil Service Clerical Association. It would appear to be a simple matter for the Committee of Privileges to come to a simple conclusion on that matter. They would have come to that conclusion the more easily if they had heeded the very clear memorandum submitted to the Committee by the learned Clerk of the House. He drew their attention to two possible courses of action. He pointed out that there was a possibility of Privilege inhering in the Member concerned, or alternatively, that the Privilege was the Privilege of the House of Commons. According to the view taken of the nature of the Privilege, different conclusions would follow.
Nowhere in the Report do I find any discussion of those alternatives or any views as to whether the Privilege inheres in the Member himself or whether it inheres in the House, although the learned Clerk had submitted that such matter was relevant for the Committee to decide. If the Committee had decided that Privilege inhered in the House itself, I imagine that they would have expressed the opinion not merely upon the part of the contract in which the Member was free to express his own opinions but upon that part of the contract in which the hon. Member was bound to the Civil Service Clerical Association. I have listened to the instances which have been given by the hon. Member for South Cardiff (Mr. Callaghan), to those which have been given by the Senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) and those by the hon. Member for the Combined Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). The instances they gave were all in the same category as that part of the contract in which the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Brown) was bound to the Civil Service Clerical Association, and not to the other part, upon which part there has been no decision and no discussion.

The Attorney-General: It was not in doubt.

Mr. Morris: If it is not in doubt, it can only be not in doubt because it is said that the hon. Member for Rugby is in

agreement with the Civil Service Clerical Association.

The Attorney-General: I am very sorry, but the hon. and learned Member may have misunderstood what I said. I said that it was not in doubt whether the Privilege was the Privilege of the House or of a particular Member. There is no doubt about that.

Mr. Morris: If the Attorney-General says that, I must point out that the learned Clerk of the House submitted, with great authority, in his memorandum, that it was a point for the Committee to discuss. If it is not in doubt, and if the Clerk of the House, with his great authority suggests to the Committee of Privileges that there were two courses open to them, it is not for me or for the Attorney-General—

The Attorney-General: It is implied in the evidence.

Mr. Morris: The memorandum of the Clerk of the House raised the whole issue of Privilege. If that question had been determined by the Committee of Privileges, then the position of the hon. Member for Rugby could have been easily disposed of. Not only was the issue which the hon. Member has raised that issue which was raised by the evidence before the Committee—

Mr. Ungoed-Thomas: Is not the point covered by the Motion now before the House?

Mr. Morris: I would like neither the Motion nor the Amendment to be carried, hut that the matter should be referred hack to the Committee of Privileges for them to consider the nature of the Privilege. The hon. Member for South Cardiff has raised a serious issue. He says that times are changing and that we should consider what the nature of Privilege is in these days. Could there have been a clearer case which raises this issue than the case of the hon. Member for Rugby, not only on the case raised, but the particular part to which he was bound? That issue having been raised, is not the Committee of Privileges the proper body to discuss this and come to a conclusion on it? The Attorney-General, in an intervention to the hon. and learned Member for the English Universities said that it had not been considered because


it was not part of the Committee's duties. It was made clear from the report that they could not come to a true conclusion without first considering the nature of the Privilege.
That being so, I would like to have the matter referred back to the Committee to consider this very fundamental problem. If they consider that problem, I think their findings on the position of the hon. Member for Rugby will have a very different conclusion. If one looks at the conclusions, they are found to be contradictory. The first one in paragraph 9 on page XI of the Report says:
…the Executive Committee considered in good faith that the public activities of Mr. Brown …
It does not matter whether the Committee considered in good faith or not. Their good faith is quite irrelevant. If anybody brings any pressure to bear on a Member of Parliament acting in good faith, it is pressure, and if it is pressure it does not matter whether it is legitimate. That is an irelevant consideration. That runs through the whole of that paragraph because the Committee had at no time clear opinion of what they meant by Privilege—whether the Privilege was the Privilege of the House or the Privilege of the hon. Member. In those circumstances the House can serve its own ends and dignity and the position of hon. Members in a much more clearly defined and authoritative way if, instead of coming to a conclusion upon a necessarily sketchy Debate such as this, when everyone has to compress his words into a few minutes, they refer this back to the Committee of Privileges and ask them to come to a decision on the main issue.

9.33 p.m.

Mr. Proctor: The question we are considering has three aspects. I put them in the order of what I consider should be their priority. The first is, the rights, privileges and liberties of the ordinary citizens of this country. The second is, the rights, privileges and liberties of hon. Members of this House. I put this second because I feel that our liberties are only designed to preserve the liberties of the ordinary citizen. Third, I put the rights and privileges of the organisations which form part of our public life—the trade unions, the Co-operative

parties, the political parties, Tories, Liberals and Communists, for that matter. All these rights come under consideration this evening.

Mr. Drayson: May I put a question to the hon. Member?

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr, Proctor) does not give way, the hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. Drayson) cannot put a question to him.

Mr. Drayson: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. As the hon. Member is speaking to this Motion, would he agree to tell the House whether he has in fact—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: A point of Order must be addressed to me and not to an hon. Member.

Mr. Drayson: I would like to ask whether he would inform the House—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: I cannot say whether the hon. Member could inform the House or not.

Mr. Drayson: But should the hon. Member not inform the House whether he has any connection with a trade union?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member knows that that is unnecessary.

Mr. Proctor: I say that the rights of the trade unions, the rights of all the political parties, must be preserved, and the right of a trade union, or any other body, to conduct political agitation, to sponsor a candidate, to pay the expenses of that candidate, is something which has grown up by custom in this country, and should not be interfered with. If we interfere with it, we interfere with the whole political organisation of the country, and I cannot see how we can differentiate between a political party and anything which operates in a Division on one side or the other, if we limit the rights of organisations to conduct political agitation and pay for it in the manner in which that has been done up to the present time. The only way in which a person without private wealth can come to the House is by being sponsored by an organisation and as a representative of his fellow workers in that organisation. It is important that that right should be preserved.
I concede that it is the duty of any Member of Parliament not to pledge himself to act here as a delegate who is instructed on any matter by an outside organisation. As far as it is within my knowledge, no trade union in this country other than in the instance brought before the House, claims that right—certainly not my own trade union.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Is the hon. Member saying that no trade union in this country specifies that one of their delegates shall vote a particular way on special legislation—one whom they assist to come into this House—[An HON. MEMBER: "As a representative."]—I am sorry, I should have said sponsor. Is the hon. Member saying that they do not require him to vote a particular way? I can give the hon. Member examples.

Mr. Proctor: The hon. Member may have instances, but I have no knowledge of such cases, and my organisation, the National Union of Railwaymen, have never made that claim. If anyone else has any other knowledge it is their duty to speak on this matter. But I wish it to be clearly laid down that it is not a principle on which trade union membership in this House is based. I am glad this matter was brought up in question and answer, because, from the evidence, it appeared as though it were suggested that the other trade union Members in this House were less free than the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown). That point was cleared up and, therefore, I will not take up time in dealing with it.
I wish to turn to the question of how the whole question of privilege arises. The hon. Member for Rugby complains that his political liberty is in danger, and he refers the matter to the Committee of Privileges and produces an agreement and a personal note about that agreement. In the opinion of the hon. Member for Rugby that agreement binds him for a percentage of his Parliamentary time. I cannot see, looking at the strict wording of the agreement, whether it does so or does not. I venture the opinion for what it is worth that it does not bind him, but that he was absolutely free. But the hon. Member for Rugby cannot claim anything upon that point, because I would refer to page 72, where is printed

a letter by him, which commences "Dear Len," and he uses these significant words:
…I bound myself to do my best to implement, in the House of Commons, the policy of the Association on Civil Service issues.
One cannot claim that one is free and independent on political issues and make a statement like that in a letter to the general secretary of a trade union. Therefore, I say that the hon. Member for Rugby puts himself absolutely out of court in this claim to the Committee of Privileges, because he says "My political liberty is in danger." But from whom is it in danger? "From those to whom I have surrendered, we will say, one per cent. of it? What is the consideration upon which I have surrendered one per cent. of it? It is £1,350 a year, it is £250 a year expenses, it is a motor car, it is the use of a secretary and a suite of offices as well. "When any Member comes to the Committee of Privileges and says, "My political freedom is in danger from that organisation." I submit that he has no case—

Mr. W. J. Brown: I hate to interrupt the hon. Member, but I would respectfully venture to suggest that Privilege, or breach of it, was not determined by whether my salary was £300, £3,000 or £300,000. Is not the hon. Member aware that what that salary represented was a continuation of my earlier emoluments, and nothing more?

Mr. Proctor: I say that the question of the hon. Member's political liberty, being endangered, cannot logically be put forward by someone who admits that he has surrendered a percentage of it. That is the point I am making.
Let us consider the actions of the association in this matter. I believe that they genuinely felt that a separation of the members and their Parliamentary general secretary of this matter would be in the interests of the union. Their proposals were that he should be paid the whole of his salary for the full period of his contract. Is that improper pressure? Their proposals were that he should still have the use of the motor car, with £500 with which to look after it for that period of time. Their proposals were that his secretary should be compensated for that period, and the proposals were also that he should continue to have the use


of the offices. If that is improper pressure then I do not say but that other hon. Members of the House would care to have the same pressure exerted on them.
The one part of this whole question which worries me is not the pressure upon the hon. Member for Rugby, but the pressure which the hon. Member for Rugby put on his executive committee. I looked through the evidence, and I see that the hon. Member for Rugby had an interview with you, Mr. Speaker, and I see that he communicated a letter to the executive committee in which he indicated that if matters went any further, a grave breach of Privilege would be committed. I am very concerned as to whether that was not improper pressure by a Member of Parliament upon his comrades with whom he was discussing this matter.
I promised to take up only a few minutes. I should have liked to develop this very much further. On this issue I feel that a tribute should be paid to the trade union representatives on that executive. They resisted all pressure and all advice, and tonight we are considering a report which says that there was no breach of Privilege. The calmness with which they dealt with the whole of this matter is a credit to trade unionists. The respect which they expressed for the rights and privileges of this House does credit to British trade unionism. I say that we should support the Government Motion, but I want to have a clear understanding that this does not mean an interference with the established rights of trade unions or any other bodies to continue their political work.
I consider that this Report says one vital thing. No hon. Member of this House shall be under a contractual obligation to carry out the instructions of an outside body. [An HON. MEMBER: "Are you?"] I am not. I say that no hon. Member of this House should be under a contractual obligation of this nature and I would say at once that if that was the price of my remaining here I would go. I hold the position of a Member of Parliament much higher than that. All that this report says is that there shall be no contractual arrangement. Let us take this clear case. The Civil Service Clerical Association should not, by resolution, be able to in-

struct the hon. Member for Rugby what to do in this House. He should be entirely free. That is all that this report says, and on that interpretation I support the Motion.

9.43 p.m.

Captain Crookshank: This Debate is purely a private affair and there is nothing attached to it as between the Government and the Opposition Front Benches. Therefore, I only intervene for a very short time because it is the common custom at some stage in the proceedings for some senior Member of at least one of the parties to express a view. Unfortunately, time is such that the years have gone by and I am one of those today. I merely speak, if I may do so in the presence of the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), as one of the older Members. I would like to say that we are having a most interesting and extremely important Debate—make no mistake about that. I am rather sorry, as were my two hon. Friends behind me, that the House is being put into the position of really having to decide two issues at once. It has to decide the approval or disapproval of a report, which is one thing. Secondly, it has to decide the approval or disapproval of a Motion which would give not exactly a code of conduct, but an indication of the lines on which hon. Members of this House should act in this very difficult field.
If my hon. Friends take the matter to a Division, I will certainly vote with them to disagree with the Report, but at this stage, and after all that has been said, the House would not wish me to explain exactly why. I merely make the biter dictum that I have read all of the evidence through twice and I hope others have done the same to try to make it clear to myself what the dispute was in this matter. I have come to the conclusion that on the whole the Committee's Report does not quite fit the story which was unfolded before them. In parentheses I would like to say that the Committee of Privileges is a Committee of this House whose Members are good enough on our behalf to take the evidence and come to their own conclusions.
But it is incumbent upon every hon. Member himself to decide a matter of this kind. We have to settle it, and in a case like this, where, happily or unhappily,


most of us know all the personnel of the drama, each of us is able to make up his own mind about the printed word in a way which in other cases would have been somewhat difficult to do. For myself, if there is a Division, and I have to decide whether I think the report of the majority of the Committee of Privileges was right or not, I would say "No," and would, therefore, go into the Lobby with my hon. Friends.
If I might, with respect, make one criticism of the Report, it would be to say that I am sorry that they did not look, behind the allegation of improper pressure having been brought, into the question whether or not the agreement was itself a breach of Privilege. In the memorandum which the Clerk of the House made, that issue was raised, and in the evidence and the questions asked on the first day, the door was opened, and I thought that perhaps the Committee would walk through it. Possibly, they thought it was outside the terms which they had received at the end of March from this House. If so, I am not at all sure that they would not have been better advised to have come back at that stage and have said to the House, "We find that there is a contract." After all, we have had it in the evidence and from the Clerk of the House, for the first time, that any such contract had been seen. Until then, there might never have been a contract, or there may have been a hundred contracts. I do not know, but this is the first time that a contract has ever appeared as such, and I should have thought that was sufficient for the Committee to have said then that there was a different situation, in view of the terms of the document, and should have come back and asked for the view of the House wheher there was a prima facie case or not, but they did not do that, and I merely express regret for my own part that that matter was not further investigated.
Where are we now? We have on the Order Paper this Motion, which is largely taken from certain words in the minority report which my hon. and learned Friend has drafted. We can all see that, in this vast field of agreements between hon. Members and outside people, there are extremes which all of us may recognise, the one, possibly as proper, and the other as improper. Obviously, any suggestion about the making of financial payments

for an hon. Member to act in a particular way on a particular issue is quite outside anything to be considered proper, and I do not know that it has ever been made. At the other extreme, there are a number of societies and institutions, without any political interests at all, but whose matters sometimes come up for consideration in legislation, whether it is Georgian houses, steel traps for catching rabbits, the preservation of rural England or hikers, and so on. We have had all this sort of thing, which comes to us from somebody outside, who sends literature to hon. Members and expresses the hope that they will be interested when this matter is discussed, without any kind of political pressure, and we all recognise this sort of action as completely harmless.
Then, there is the middle portion, in which for the first time, we now find that there is a contract. I am not quite sure what the term "contractual" agreement means as used in the words of the Motion and I hope the Lord President will tell us more about it. I hope it will not be thought impertinent on my part to suggest that.
I just want to say this. There is this large field of very great difficulty. Speaking entirely for myself, I do not see how we can possibly lay down any kind of code. An hon. Member said just now that he thought it ought to be referred back to the Committee of Privileges in order that the Committee should try to define what Privilege was. I think that is quite impossible and, with all respect, I would not approve of anything of the sort. This is tradition handed down, and it is either broadened or narrowed according to the cases which come before it. One cannot lay down a code here, but I think that we must all of us, having recognised that there are extremes at both ends, assume that every hon. Member of this House is an honourable person. That is an underlying assumption that we must all make about each other, and we must also assume that not only are we honourable men and women, but that we are honest, and also sensible men and women.
We are Members of a very great Parliament, and we pride ourselves—and that is inherent in the Motion which we are invited to pass tonight—that we cannot be, and will not be, delegates of any outside body. That, of course, has been pointed out and is laid down in the


great dictum of Burke. I wonder how, in the intervening years, that dictum has worked out. There must have been great pressure in the time of pocket boroughs, but that is past history. We are now in a very different age, but it is vital, to my mind, that we should all assume that no one here is a delegate. If anybody feels that they have been acting in such a way, let them search their consciences and see whether they ought to change the conditions or arrangements under which they work here.
It is up to everybody's conscience to decide whether his actions are right. I am not imputing anything; I hope hon. Members realise that, because we do not know the situation in which others find themselves, although I must say that certain things have been mentioned during this Debate as being common knowledge which I had not thought were common knowledge. However, be that as it may, I think that we should all trust each other to do the right thing in these difficult circumstances, and we should certainly not let it go out from this House tonight that there is a large body of Members here who are under contract to outside bodies for the work they do in this House.
This Parliament has a great place in the world, which has been enhanced by our actions in this House and the other House before it was destroyed during the war. Therefore, because of this unfortunate case, let it not be made to appear in any kind of way that agreements of this kind were common, or that there are some existing today. If there are, then appeal to my brother Members to look into their own cases, should there be any, and to remember the words which the right hon. Gentleman used in his speech in opening this Debate—"the honour of the House as a whole is at stake.

9.58 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I am sure that all hon. Members will agree that this Debate has been full of interest, and that new Members will all agree that they have learned a great deal as the result of the speeches made today about the ethics that are expected of hon. Members of this House. In view of all that has been said, and the many aspects which this Debate has covered, I only wish, in the few minutes I propose to take up, to

refer to one passage of the report of the Committee of Privileges, because it seems to me it would not be right to pass it over unnoticed. I refer to the last three paragraphs of the report of the Committee entitled:
Incident of a Letter affecting
Mr. Speaker.
As hon. Members will realise, these particular paragraphs were common both to the majority and the minority Reports. I refer to the matter for the reason that, as I read the evidence given, it seemed to me that not the least serious of the charges which might have been heard against the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) was the use he had made to his executive committee of a conversation he had with you, Mr. Speaker. As has been said by previous speakers, the hon. Member for Rugby has apparently, over a long period, sought to bring a certain amount of pressure to bear on the executive committee by suggesting that the course of conduct which they were pursuing might have amounted to a breach of Privilege. We are all jealous of Parliamentary Privileges, but their existence should impose on us the duty never, without the greatest circumspection, to attempt to deflect third parties or outsiders from the course they are pursuing by the suggestion that they would be committing a breach of Privilege.
I think the House should bear in mind that not only did the hon. Member for Rugby on a number of occasions appear to deflect the executive committee from the course they were pursuing, by suggesting that Privilege was involved, but he also went to the length of having an interview with you, Mr. Speaker, and I think the gravity lies in the fact that he very seriously distorted the effect of the interview or, to use your own words in the evidence that you were good enough to give before the Committee, made "a big overstatement." So great, not only in this House but throughout the country, is the respect which is given to any word, ruling or dictum of yours, that I feel the House should recognise an overwhelming duty to be most scrupulously careful when repeating any private conversation with you, as occurred on this occasion—true it was repeated with your authority—to see that any such conversation is accurate and is not used, by overstatement or by distorting any remark of yours, to a


Member's advantage with a view to influencing the course of conduct which a third party may be proposing to take. I thought it right to refer to this matter because it seems to me that the report of the Committee of Privileges is hardly strong enough in the language that it uses in reference to this subject.
I do not propose to detain the House by referring to the evidence which you were good enough to give, Mr. Speaker, but I do think it is important to allude to the letter of 21st March by the hon. Member for Rugby, which was subsequently read to the executive committee:
I must tell you that the Speaker was kind enough to receive me this morning on the question of the possible breach,
and then, omitting unnecessary words:
I informed him fully of the position, and he stated that unquestionably a grave breach of Privilege would be involved if matters went any further
Fortunately, we know as a result of the evidence given, that those words were not warranted. I think it is unfortunate that they were used. I am glad the matter was referred to by the Committee, and I feel that all Members of this House will agree with the in the opinion that any hon. Member who is fortunate enough at any time to have the benefit of your guidance and counsel on a matter affecting our Parliamentary conduct in Debate, should be most scrupulous when repeating it elsewhere to a third party in not departing from it by one iota, or exaggerating any word of advice which you have been good enough to give.

10.5 p.m.

Mr. Harold Roberts: It is not my intention as a junior Member of the House to detain it very long on a matter on which Members senior to me have spoken with so much competence. But I was struck by an interjection made by the Attorney-General in the course of the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). I do not think I represent the right hon. and learned Gentleman unfairly when I say to him, that he told us that, although the Committee would have been glad, had they been asked to do so to embark on the whole question of Privilege, the terms of their remit were confined to investigating the particular complaints made about the conduct of this trade union. Upon that

I looked at the report, and I found words to which I must trouble hon. Members to turn at the very beginning:
Complaint being made by Mr. Byers, Member for the County of Dorset (North Division), of certain actions by the Executive Committee of the Civil Service Clerical Association, which he submitted were calculated improperly to influence Mr. William Brown, Member for the County of Warwick (Rugby Division), in the exercise of his Parliamentary duties, and constituted a breach of the Privileges of this House.
Ordered, "That the matter of the Complaint be referred to the Committee of Privileges.
How could the Committee of Privileges, with any conception of their duty, consider that complaint if they had not a clear idea of what was and what was not a breach of Privilege?
If they embarked upon their duties under the misapprehension under which the Attorney-General apparently laboured as to the terms and ambit of their remit, one cannot be surprised that they came to the conclusion which, I am bound to say on reading the evidence, appears to me to be entirely contrary to the weight of evidence given. This is an attempt to exonerate the trade union and maintain some appearance of generality, and they have to set out a series of what I can only call conflicting duties of people having contact with Members of this House.
I wish to speak with great moderation, but, as we have been reminded by one hon. Member, the ultimate decision upon this grave matter rests with the Members of the House. The Committee do their work, and it is for us to pronounce upon it. I am very sorry to say that, when I perused the report in full, I discovered that at every stage the great forensic abilities of the Attorney-General appeared to me to be directed to a cross-examination calculated to discredit the complainant and to exonerate the respondents. I am free to admit that my judgment may be wrong. I would only ask hon. Members who are eager to criticise me thoroughly to re-peruse the whole report, and to devote themselves particularly to those items which are the cross-examination by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. For that reason I find myself unable to agree with the report, and I am further of the opinion that it does not hang together with the last portion of the Motion.
I have only to make one remark by way of a cautionary note. One must feel great sympathy with an hon. Member in his desire that the proper privileges of trade unions with regard to remunerating their members who are Members of this House should not be withdrawn or abridged. Indeed, it is one of the difficulties of this discussion that the right to maintain members is expressly given to them by Statute, by the Act of 1913. But I must point out in all seriousness that if this Motion is carried, whether amended or not, some hon. Members of this House will have to examine themselves and their contracts—and I use the word advisedly—with great care. I have been scanning Dod over the weekend, and I find that some 30 hon. Members are given as being officials of trade unions. We had the evidence of, I think, Sir Gilbert Campion that he had never seen a written contract before, and that this was the only one of which the terms had come to light.
I should like those hon. Members who may be affected to consider the exact wording of the Motion, which is disjunctive. It says:
it is inconsistent with the dignity of the House, with the duty of a Member to his constituents, and with the maintenance of the privilege of freedom of speech, for any Member of this House to enter into any contractual agreement with an outside body, controlling or limiting the Member's complete independence and freedom of action in Parliament;
A contractual relationship does not mean a deed, a bond, indentures or documents. It means a contract, which can be expressed or implied by conduct. In future, if a trade union member came to me and said: "I have always voted as my trade union wished, and never dreamed of thwarting their wishes, but I gave a vote the other day at which they rather looked down their noses. Do you think I am all right?" I should be bound to advise him: "No, you are all wrong. There is a course of dealing which has clearly established a contractual relationship of the kind hit at, by a Resolution of the House of 15th July, 1947."

10.13 p.m.

Mr. Ungoed-Thomas: As has been said, this Motion falls into two quite distinct parts. First, approval of the report of the Committee of Privileges; and second, the question of the general principle. I was rather

astonished by the speeches of the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn), and of the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss), in which they invited the House to reject the Report of the Committee of Privileges, largely upon the ground that the report was inconsistent with the second part of the Motion. The second part of the Motion is perfectly consistent with the Report. What the Report does is to make a finding on a specific matter which was referred to them. The matter which was referred to them was whether or not pressure had been brought to bear upon the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), which constituted a breach of Privilege. The findings of the Report are in paragraph 9 to paragraph 20. The vital answer to the matters submitted to them appears in paragraph 20, and the conclusions from paragraph 9 to paragraph 19 are merely matters leading up to the decision upon the matter referred to them.
The vital paragraph, paragraph 20, is what would be rejected if this House refused to adopt the report. That paragraph finds:
that the Executive Committee were entitled to bring the question of the termination of the agreement before the Annual Conference of the Association, that they had in effect been invited by Mr. Brown so to do, and that their action in proposing so to do was not calculated to, and did not, in fact, affect Mr. Brown in the discharge of his Parliamentary duties.
That is the vital point in answer to what was referred to the Committee by this House—in other words, that there was no breach of Privilege. The vital difference between the majority report and the minority report, is that the minority report found that there had been a breach of Privilege. That is why I have no hestitation, despite the rather ornate arguments which have been presented to the House, in coming down, as a matter of common sense, in favour of the finding that has been made by the majority report, namely, that there is no breach of Privilege.
There are two matters bearing on this, to which I should like briefly to refer. They are matters which have influenced my mind in reading this report, and perhaps they have had some weight with other hon. Members. On page 45 of the report, in answer to Question 533, Mr. White, who was certainly a witness


favourable to the hon. Member for Rugby—

Mr. Pickthorn: Politically against him.

Mr. Ungoed-Thomas: He was favourable to him on this issue, which is the only issue with which we are concerned at the moment. The answer given was that:
there was no pressure put upon him after he made it quite clear at the November meeting that he would not change his views. Thereafter all the activities were directed to getting an arrangement whereby he got out of the Association.

Mr. Pickthorn: Hear, hear.

Mr. Ungoed-Thomas: That was in November, 1946, and the complaint of the hon. Member for Rugby was not until March, 1947. It is in complete keeping with the majority report decision—that what they were concerned about was to get an amicable arrangement whereby an agreement, which they conceived to be a valid agreement and would not be disposed of except by mutual agreement. What brought it to a head was a decision of the executive committee, in accordance with the invitation of the hon. Member for Rugby to refer the matter to the general conference. Here I should like to refer to a matter which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher), namely, your own evidence, Mr. Speaker. I have been puzzled by what transpired on that occasion.
What puzzles me about this is the reference to the Newcastle resolution, and I still do not know what the explanation is. I took the precaution of informing the hon. Member for Rugby that I wished to raise this, and that I would give him an opportunity to explain it. This is what happened. I will quote from Question 653.
Did not Mr. Brown tell you that the Executive Committee had told the Newcastle Branch that their resolution was out of order and could not be accepted?—No, I knew nothing about that.
The significance of this is that the matter was brought to you, Mr. Speaker, upon the footing that the Newcastle resolution was to be referred to the conference, but by this time the executive committee had already turned down the Newcastle branch resolution; yet that was a matter upon which you, Mr. Speaker, were asked to give some indication of whether there would be a breach of Privilege or not. It

was not on the question of whether the holding of a conference or the termination of an agreement—if put to the conference—would be a breach of Privilege or not. That was not the matter upon which you, Sir, were consulted. You were consulted on the question of a Newcastle branch resolution which had already been completely disposed of. I am quite sure that there is some explanation of this, but to me it is a matter which stands out of this report and I very much regret that the hon. Member for Rugby is not here to give an explanation of what actually happened.
Personally, I have had no hesitation in coming to the decision that the majority conclusion in paragraph 20 is completely correct. If I may make just one brief reference to the general question, it is to say that the vital matter on the general issue is that financial arrangements should not be used as a method of bringing pressure. I am afraid that here I am in disagreement with my hon. Friend the Member for South Cardiff (Mr. Callaghan), but it seems to me to be quite irrelevant whether this method of bringing financial pressure should result from some continuation of an arrangement existing before the man concerned became a Member of Parliament or otherwise. What really matters is the exercise of pressure. In the same way, I agree with the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hopkin Morris) that is is not the Privilege of a Member but is inherent in the House itself. That is why I cannot agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) in saying that the hon. Member for Rugby was put out of court by reason of his own conduct. Nothing would put him out of court because this was a matter of privilege which affects Parliament itself. So far as financial pressure is concerned, as hon. Members have said, each Member is to a large extent his own Committee of Privileges in a matter of this kind. It must be left largely to the honour of Members of Parliament, but when there is a contract which itself imposes an obligation upon the Member that he must act in conformity with the conditions which that contract imposes, then there is automatically something which the House can get hold of and recognise. If I may say so with respect, the Government have rightly fixed upon that test as something easily recognisable, saying


that in that case there is certainly financial pressure which would involve a breach of Privilege.

10.24 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): As the House has assumed, the Government put down the Motion on the Order Paper for the purpose of assisting the House, and my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio and I are intervening in order to give the House advice which we think it proper and fair to give. Having said that, I want to make it abundantly clear not only that the Government Whips are off, but that my hon. Friends are absolutely free to vote in any way they think right on this matter. I myself cannot help being Lord President of the Council for the time being, but I like to feel that I am speaking more as the hon. Member for East Lewisham than as the Lord President of the Council or as a Member of the Government because this is essentially a House of Commons matter, and the opinion of the House of Commons on a subject of this sort is, if I may say so with great respect to His Majesty's Ministers more important than the opinions of His Majesty's Government.
We have had a good discussion—good tempered—and I think that it has been judicial and objective in tone throughout. I particularly liked the spirit of the speech of the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank), who is a considerable Parliamentarian, and, I thought, reflected the highest feelings and traditions of the House of Commons. We had an able and impressive defence of his position by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), although, as I shall say in the course of my observations, I do not agree with a number of things that he said. He would have preferred, as would some other hon. Members, that the Motion should have been divided into two parts, but, as the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) pointed out, to a great extent the moving of his Amendment gives the House an opportunity of voting on whether or not it agrees with the report of the Committee, and, on the second part, although not altogether by itself,. there is an opportunity to vote on the substance of the Motion.
The more I listened to the Debate, the less I thought there was between us as to the satisfactory character or otherwise of the Committee's report. There is, it is true, a point as to whether the Association was guilty of a breach of Privilege. With great respect, I do not think that the case has been argued very strongly to show that the Association was guilty of such a breach. I rather thought, from the point of view expressed by the critics of the report, that they attached greater importance to the criticism that, whilst the Report sets out the facts and so on, it does not set out a conclusion on the merits of the agreement itself. The answer has been that that issue was not specifically referred to the Committee, and I find that a reasonable answer. Still, I see the point of the critics, and I do not say that there is nothing in what they have said. They have a point, which I understand; but even if the criticism—that the Report does not lead to the statement or the adumbration of a positive conclusion—be fair, we have an opportunity of putting it right tonight by carrying the Motion, which will fill in the conclusion that the critics thought ought to have been in the Report of the Committee. When the difference between us is so fine—and it really is fine—I think that it would be a pity for us to have a Division, and if there could be a unanimous House of Commons on this matter of Privilege, which certainly is not a party issue—and whatever party voting occurs is somewhat by accident—if we could get a unanimous decision of the House, I think that it would be a good thing and help towards laying down the principles of the law of Privilege as we go along.
The hon. Member for Rugby, to whom we listened with very great interest, gave us his political history very accurately, and he traced the beginnings of what he alleges to be hostility from the time he left the Labour Party in 1931. Because of that experience, he thought in 1942 that it would be wise that there should be an agreement for the purpose, from his point of view, of protecting his political liberty and his Parliamentary freedom. I follow that argument; but, of course, the real issue before the House, vis-à-vis the agreement, is not that part of the agreement which undoubtedly—and quite properly, at any rate, from his point of view—accords to the hon. Member complete freedom of action on general


political issues. That is not the issue before the House. The issue before the House is the other part of the agreement, which requires him to act in Parliament on behalf of the Civil Service Clerical Association. The hon. Member says that paragraph 6 of the agreement, on page. 59, says what he is not to do. That is to say, that he is not entitled, in his Parliamentary activities, to presume and purport to speak in political matters on behalf of the Association; and that is clear. But I think that, at the same time, the hon. Member ought to have referred to paragraph 4, which is more material and relevant to the issue before the House. Paragraph 4 of the same agreement says:
The said William John Brown shall deal with all questions arising in the work of the Association which require Parliamentary or political action and shall advise the Association from time to time on such matters.
The said William John Brown shall further confer and consult with the Association on all problems requiring his assistance, and advise thereon if and when so required by the Association.
And indeed, the addendum must be read as a whole, and in certain respects it must be read in conjunction with the original agreement itself. The real point which arises on this paragraph 4 is the question, does it, or does it not, impair the freedom of Parliamentary action of the hon. Member? Does it fetter his judgment, does it impair his liberty to speak and vote in a certain way on Civil Service matters; that is to say, matters with which the Civil Service Clerical Association has to do? In the first place, the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) quoted from the letter which the hon. Member for Rugby sent to Mr. White, in which I thought there was pretty strong evidence, from what my hon. Friend read, that in fact his liberty had gone, within those limits—only within those limits—of Civil Service questions which are before the House.
My right hon. and learned Friend, the Attorney-General made a great effort in the Committee, to extract from the hon. Member what his interpretation of that part of the agreement was, and it runs over a considerable amount of typographical area; and repeatedly the hon. Member for Rugby gave an answer to the effect "I have nothing to add to what is in my memorandum;" or, quite frequently "Nobody ever dreamed that the Association

and I could take a different view." That is a very happy state of affairs. I wish I could have said that of bodies with which I have been associated. And secondly, he said: "No one ever believed there would be a difference of view," and finally: "There never has been a difference of view." I am not disposed to dispute that evidence that there never has been a difference of view. That is no doubt one of the matters which influenced the Committee to declare that in its judgment there had been no breach from the point of view of Privilege. This went on for quite a time. But there was the question, for example, by the learned Attorney-General on page 17. I refer to Question 199—
If the Association had said: 'The line you have taken in the Debate on Equal Pay for civil servants' or 'In regard to the question of the right of civil servants' organisations to affiliate to the T.U.C. is not the line which the Association takes, will you therefore agree to terminate the agreement between us' you would have said, would you not: 'That is a breach of Parliamentary Privilege'
To that, the hon Member for Rugby replied:
With respect, that is the third time that you have put that to me.
Then on the same page, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) came in, and said:
I should like an answer. I think you ought to give an answer to that. It is on the Civil Service side of it. It is nothing to do with general affairs.
The hon. Member for Rugby replied:
The answer is that that is a hypothetic at situation which did not in fact arise and to which I have given no consideration.
The learned Attorney-General followed by asking:
Would you consider it now and answer it? If you prefer not to I will leave it and pass on to something else.
Indeed it was not answered.

Mr. W. J. Brown: May I interrupt, Mr. Speaker? At that point the Committee broke up in disorder.

Mr. Morrison: Well, I was not there, so I am not in a position to say anything about that. There was, however, another question by the right hon. Member for Woodford, and to this one, I think he got an answer. I will not be dead certain, but I have read the report very carefully, and I think that this was the only time that there was an answer on this very


point when put to the hon. Member for Rugby—[Interruption.] No, I do not want to be funny about this. Let us look at Question 133, on page 12. It says:
I quite see that. But I am not on that point yet. That is another aspect of it altogether. What I want to know is this: supposing in the discharge of your duties as representing them on Civil Service matters, a quite definite and prolonged cause of dissatisfaction arose on their side with the views on Civil Service matters that you were expressing, had they no remedy?
The answer was:
We did not envisage that situation, and we did not provide for it in any document that I can recall, but plainly, if over a long period of time on Civil Service matters, we found ourselves at loggerheads, one of two things would have happened. I should either have said: 'This arrangement cannot continue,' or they would have come to me and said the same thing.
It seems to me that it is inherent in the answer that the hon. Gentleman, by signing the agreement, had signed away his complete freedom of action on Civil Service matters. I personally think that, so tar as I know, the law of Privilege has not hitherto laid down whether that would be a breach or not. That is what we are doing tonight, in principle, in this Motion. If, hereafter, people make arrangements of this sort, binding on an hon. Member of this House, I think hon. Members and organisations concerned should be very careful and would do well to reflect upon them. If this agreement continues after tonight, I should have thought the hon. Member for Rugby, and the Association would think twice about it. I should have thought it would be a matter for consideration whether a prima facie case would not arise for consideration by the Committee of Privileges. But it would be for you, Sir, and not for me to decide about it.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question? Would he extend that to other than contractual agreements? Does he not agree that it is quite possible for an agreement to be arrived at, which is not a contractual agreement?

Mr. Morrison: I do not want to go too deeply into matters which are more fitting for discussion by lawyers than by me. But I think it may be a little difficult for one to have an agreement which is not a contractual agreement. Indeed, the point was put to me by somebody—I forget

whom; perhaps it was the right hon. Gentleman—as to why this word "contractual" was put in.

Mr. Pickthorn: Would the right hon. Gentleman permit me?

Mr. Morrison: Would the hon. Gentleman mind waiting a moment? I am already answering a question put to me. I thought the word ought to go in. I felt happier at thinking it would be inserted—in connection with this particular agreement, for there was a written agreement; there was a contract. I thought for the purpose of describing the issue to the House it would be better to have the word "contractual" in. I took the advice of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, and will tell the House quite frankly the answer he gave me. He said: "I do not see any objection to its being in, but if you ask me what difference it makes, I do not think it makes any difference." As I felt a bit happier at having it in, and he said it made no difference, I thought we would let it stand.

Mr. Pickthorn: I am awfully sorry to interrupt, but I did wait until the end of a very long paragraph; and, therefore, I have now myself got slightly muddled. But I think this is a point on which the House really cannot afford to be muddled, and there may be others who are slightly muddled. I think the right hon. Gentleman, on the last question he was quoting, went so far as to say that it was evidence, if not proof, that there was a breach of Privilege. I just want to be quite sure that that is what he said; because if it is what he said, I do hope he will take his desire for unanimity to the point of what, after all, was the original Motion in the matter—that is for disagreeing with the report.

Mr. Morrison: I think the hon. Gentleman has got things slightly wrong. With great respect, I think he has misunderstood what I said about this answer—I think it is on Question 133—that I thought that it established the point that when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby signed the agreement, he had, to that extent, signed away his complete freedom of Parliamentary action within the sphere of Parliamentary action. Somebody else then said that that was a breach of Privilege, and at that point I was careful not to commit myself, because it would not be for me, on my own volition, to


say so. It has not hitherto beet decided. If it is to be decided, either it must be decided by this House, or it must be decided by the Committee of Privileges on consideration. But I am content that this Motion should be carried tonight—which, I think, in principle, does declare that such agreements are undesirable and to be avoided.
The hon. Gentleman then did indicate that he had been subjected to pressure, and it has so been asserted. The first reference he made to that pressure was after 1931, and then he referred to the fact that there were troublesome—no doubt, small in numbers—Communist elements in the Association. The hon. Member will accept from me a word of sympathy about that, because I have had my battles with the Communists from time to time, and with ferocity, but if I may say so, it is a bit of a red herring to bring into this discussion. After all, Mr. L. C. White was called to the Committee at the request of the hon. Gentleman and Mr. White is one of the directors of the "Daily Worker." He gave evidence on behalf of the hon. Gentleman, and if I were to ask myself what were the politics of Mr. White I should say he is either an actual, secret or open member of the Communist Party, or a follower or an associate or a "crypto" or a fellow-traveller of Communists or what hon. Members will. I do not know that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby will contradict me on that point, but the hon. Member had better be careful of trying to have it both ways. He blames much of this on Communist troubles, and then he calls Mr. White to give evidence.
The next point is, did the Association and did the executive committee commit a breach? It must be remembered that if there was an executive committee of about 25 members, it is a little difficult to control the tongue of each one of them, but someone might argue whether or not that was a breach of Privilege. I would not like to be sure that not one of these members of the executive has ever said anything which might not be so interpreted. Having read the evidence I really do not see that it is shown that the executive in its corporate capacity, or the individual members of the executive, were guilty of a breach of Privilege.
What was the trouble? First of all they disagreed with the hon. Gentleman

the Member for Rugby. On certain political matters they disagreed strongly with him. We must be very careful, even in the case where there is a contract existing, if somebody says, "I do not agree with Bill Brown"—or whoever it might be—"because I think he is following the wrong line." This is a free country and we can criticise a Member of Parliament and so ought to be careful about bringing that into a breach of Privilege. If they said, of course, to the hon. Gentleman—"If you do not change your political line we will do you out of your job and not only that, but we will do you out of the money you get for the job. In that way we will punish you financially for not pursuing the political line that is our policy"—that is another matter, but there is no evidence that that happened.
There was evidence that there was inconvenience to the Association especially at the time they rejoined the Trade Union Congress. There was a feeling on that because their nominee, Mr. White, did not get on to the Trade Union Congress. I am not grumbling that Mr. White did not get on. There was some apprehension, however, that the activities of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby in various industrial organisations outside, with which we are not concerned tonight, acted to prejudice the candidature of Mr. White for the General Council. There was talk behind the scenes and it is perfectly true.that there was criticism of the hon. Gentleman, and I know that some of it might be strong criticism. However strong that criticism of him was, it was no stronger than has been used about me in outside quarters and organisations with which I have had to live, with happiness on the whole, from time to time. That seems to me to be perfectly legitimate.
It is true that they proceeded to discuss ways and means whereby that agreement with the hon. Gentleman could be brought to an end, and they certainly thought that they were in a jam as to how to bring it to an end. I am bound to say that the Civil Service Association executive were a little bit innocent in these business matters. They were in great difficulties and they sought friendly ways of trying to persuade the hon. Gentleman to bring this agreement to an end. Perhaps some of the discussions were not so friendly as they might have been, but, on the whole, the attempts made to


terminate the agreement were friendly, and were on a basis of very full and ample compensation to the hon. Gentleman, which he himself accepted as not being unreasonable.
They came to a point when he said to them—as he was entitled to say—"I am not taking this from the executive committee." He seems to have been as frank with the executive committee as they were with him. He said, "If this contract has to be brought to an end, it has to be brought to an end by those with whom it was originally arranged, namely, the Association's annual conference and when it goes there, it must be carried by the necessary majority." He added that if that were freely done, he would not regard the terms of compensation as being unreasonable. It was the hon. Gentleman who said that he did not take this termination of the contract from the executive but only from the conference, whereupon the executive proceeded to draft a motion for that conference covering the negotiations, in which I gather they had reached an amicable agreement, with a view to terminating the contract with the hon. Gentleman.
It was at that point when they were going to the conference with the concurrence of the hon. Gentleman that the next move took place. I do not say that the hon. Gentleman was going to the conference because he wanted to go, but as distinct from settling the matter with the executive. It was at that point that the hon. Gentleman raised the question of Privilege, when the Speaker gave a Ruling of a prima facie case, and the whole machinery here went into motion. With great respect I cannot see that the Association in that case, especially as they were paying most generous compensation, under which the hon. Gentleman would not have been worse off, were being punitive and trying to punish him or coerce him in his freedom of judgment or in his conduct in the House of Commons. With great respect to hon. Gentlemen opposite, who have put their case very well—and I do not question their sincerity in the least—I think the Committee was right in coming to the conclusion that the Association, the executive committee and the officers did not commit a breach of Privilege. That is the view which I take.
the hon. Member for Cambridge University put a number of points to me and I have dealt with a good many of them. I do not think he expects me to cover all of them, and he will forgive me if I have not dealt with some of them, though I think I have with the bulk of them. Here perhaps it would be better if I referred to the arguments which sometimes came from the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) and sometimes from others, on the various points which have arisen. It was asserted by the hon. Member for the English Universities that there had been pressure and coercion, threats of punishment implied, on the part of the executive against the hon. Member for Rugby. I have covered the general history of the matter as I see it and with the greatest good will, and with a wish to be agreeable as far as one can, I really cannot see it. The question has been raised about the trade unions, about the National Union of Teachers. I would only say that as far as I know, there is no other agreement of this kind—and I have had a good deal to do with the Labour Party, trade union relationships, and selection of candidates, and I have had a little to do now and again with the discipline of the Labour Party. As we have gone on, we have progressively relaxed the discipline, and the cause of freedom has marched on. Therefore, I know a good deal about these arrangements of hon. Friends of mine and the trade unions, and I agree with the hon. Member for Eccles, for as far as I know I have never heard of an agreement like this. In fact, I do not know of any agreement which affected the Parliamentary action of trade union members of the House. I cannot speak about the National Union of Teachers, which is not affiliated to the Labour Party, and I would not know, but I would be surprised, if it were so in that case.
What would my answer be if this point were put to me—it is a perfectly fair question—namely: Suppose you found a trade union affiliated to the Labour Party which had an agreement with its M.Ps. similar to the agreement which the hon. Gentleman had with the Civil Service Clerical Association? My answer in that case would be the same, and I would advise the trade union and the Member concerned to get out of it as quickly as they could. And I would always say to hon. Members of


this House that the first duty of Members of this House is to their constituents and the nation, and it is wrong that they should be fettered in their judgment by any outside interest. Therefore, if a case did arise in which a trade union was in that situation, I would say exactly what I would say about this agreement in which the hon. Member was involved. I do not think there is such a case, but if it were so, that is the view I would take. I thought that the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) was on a fair point. I do think that it was not exactly a good use of the consultation which took place with you, Sir, and was calculated to have a coercive effect upon the Association.
I have not dealt with every point that has been raised, but in conclusion I would

say that this has been a very good discussion. The House of Commons is usually at its best in discussing these matters of the rights of Parliament and of Privilege. There is not really very much difference between us. I appreciate the hon. Member's point, but in so far as it may be thought that there was a gap in the Committee's Report, the Motion fills the gap. I do not like the idea of dividing even with the Whips off. It may work out, more or less, on party lines. I would not like it. I would ask hon. Gentlemen not to press it to a Division, and to allow the Government Motion to be carried.

Question put, "That the word 'agrees,' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 275; Noes, 114.

Division No. 309.]
AYES
[11.0 p.m.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Deer, G.
Hoy, J.


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Diamond, J.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Dobbie, W.
Hughes, H. D. (Wolverhampton, W.)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Dodds, N. N.
Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Driberg, T. E. N.
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)


Attewell, H. C.
Dumpleton, C. W.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)


Austin, H. Lewis
Durbin, E. F. M.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A


Awbery, S. S.
Dye, S.
Janner, B.


Ayles, W. H.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Jay, D P. T


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B
Edelman, M.
Jeger, G (Winchester)


Baird, J.
Edwards, John (Blackburn)
Jeger, Dr S W (St Pancras, S. E.)


Barstow, P. G.
Edwards, W. J. (Whilechapel)
John, W.


Barton, C.
Fairhurst, F.
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. C. (Shipley)


Battley, J. R.
Farthing, W. J.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)


Bechervaise, A. E.
Field, Capt. W. J.
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)


Benson, G.
Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Keenan, W.


Beswick, F.
Foot, M. M.
Kendall, W. D


Bevan, Rt Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Forman, J. C.
King, E. M.


Bing, G. H. C.
Foster, W. (Wigan)
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr E


Binns, J.
Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Kirkwaod, D


Blenkinsop, A
Gaitskell, H. T. N.



Blyton, W. R.
Gallacher, W.
Lavers, S.


Boardman, H.
Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Lee, F. (Hulme)


Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Gibbins, J.
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Gibson, C. W.
Leonard, W.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pi, Exch'ge)
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Levy, B W.


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Goodrich, H. E.
Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)


Bramall, E. A.
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Lindgren, G. S


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)
Lipson, D. L


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Lipton, Lt.-Col M


Brown, George (Belper)
Grenfell, D R.
Logan, D. G


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Grey, C. F.
Longden, F.


Buchanan, G.
Grierson, E.
Lyne, A. W.


Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
McAdam, W.


Callaghan, James
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
McGhee, H G.


Carmiohael, James
Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)
McGovern, J.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Guest, Dr. L. Haden
Mack, J. D.


Champion, A. J.
Gunter, R. J.
McKay, J (Wallsend)


Chetwynd, G. R.
Guy, W. H.
Mackay, R. W. G (Hull, N W.)


Cluse, W. S.
Haire, John E. (Wycombe)
McKinlay, A S


Cobb, F. A.
Hall, W G.
Maclean, N. (Govan)


Cocks, F. S.
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col R.
McLeavy, F.


Coldrick, W.
Hannan, W (Maryhill)
Macpherson, T (Romford)


Collins, V. J.
Hardy, E A.
Mainwaring, W H.


Colman, Miss G. M.
Harris, H Wilson
Mallalieu, J. P. W


Comyns, Dr. L.
Harrison, J.
Mann, Mrs. J


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N. W.)
Hastings, Dr Somerville
Manning, Mrs. L (Epping)


Cove, W. G.
Henderson, A (Kingswinford)
Marquand, H. A.


Grossman, R. H S.
Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)
Medland, H. M


Daggar, G.
Herbison, Miss M
Mellish, R. J


Daines, P.
Hobson, C. R.
Middleton, Mrs. L


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Holman, P.
Mikardo, Ian


Davies, Hadyn (St. Pancras S. W.)
Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)
Millington, Wing-Comdr E R




Mitchison, G. R.
Richards, R.
Tiffany, S.


Moody, A. S.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.
Timmons, J.


Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Titterington, M. F.


Morley, R.
Ross, William (Kilmarnock)
Tolley, L.


Morris, P (Swansea, W.)
Royle, C.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.


Morrison, Rt Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Sargood, R.
Turner-Samuels, M


Mort, D. L
Scollan, T.
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Moyle, A.
Scott-Elliot, W
Usborne, Henry


Murray, J. O.
Segal, Dr. S.
Vernon, Maj. W. F


Nally, W.
Sharp, Granville
Viant, S. P.


Neal, H.(Claycross)
Shawcross, C N. (Widnes)
Walkden, E.


Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Shawcross, Rt. Hn. Sir H (St. Helens)
Walker, G. H


Nicholls, H. R (Stratford)
Shurmer, P.
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)
Watkins, T E.


Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J. (Derby)
Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)
Watson, W. M.


Oldfield, W. H.
Simmons, C J
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Oliver, G. H.
Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.
Weitzman, D


Paget, R. T.
Skinnard, F W.
Wells, P. L. (Faversham)


Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wantworth)
Smith, C. (Colchester)
Walls, W. T. (Walsall)


Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Smith, H. N (Nottingham, S.)
West, D. G.


Palmer, A M. F.
Smith, S H (Hull, S. W.)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Pargiter, G. A.
Snow, Capt. J. W.
Wilcock, Group-Capt C. A. B.


Parker, J.
Sotley, L. J
Wilkes, L.


Parkin. B. T.
Sorensen, R. W
Wilkins, W. A.


Palon, J. (Norw[...])
Soskice, Maj. Sir F
Willey, F T (Sunderland)


Pearson, A.
Sparks, J. A
Willey, O G. (Cleveland)


Peart, T. F.
Stamford, W
Williams, D.,J. (Neath)


Piratin, P.
Steele, T.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Poole, Major Cecil (Lichfield)
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)
Williams, Rt. Hon T (Don Valley)


Popplewell, E.
Stross, Dr. B
Williams, W R. (Heston)


Porter E. (Warrington)
Stubbs, A. E.
Williamson, T


Porter, G. (Leeds)
Swingler, S.
Willis, E.


Price, M. Philips
Sylvester, G. O.
Woods, G. S


Pritt, D. N.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
Wyatt, W.


Proctor, W. T.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Vales, V. F.


Pryde, D. J.
Thomas, D E (Aberdare)
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Randall, H. E.
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Ranger, J.
Thomas, I. O (Wrekin)



Reid, T. (Swindon)
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Rhodes, H.
Thurtle, Ernest
Mr. Kinley and Mr. Hale.




NOES


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Gage, C
Maude, J. C.


Astor, Hon. M.
George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'ke)
Mellor, Sir J


Baldwin, A. E
Grimston, R. V.
Molson, A. H. E.


Barlow, Sir P
Hannon, Sir P (Moseley)
Mott-Radclyffe, Maj. C. E.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Hare, Hon J. H (Woodbridge)
Neven-Spence, Sir B.


Beechman, N. A
Harvey, Air-Comdre A. V
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P


Bernett, Sir P
Head. Brig A. H
Nutting, Anthony


Birch, Nigel
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.
Orr-Ewing, I. L


Bossom, A. C.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Osborne, C.


Bowen, R.
Hogg, Hon. Q.
Pitman, I. J.


Bower, N.
Hope, Lord J.
Price-White, Lt.-Col. D


Boyd Carpenter, J. A.
Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.


Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J G
Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J.
Raikes, H. V.


Brown, W J. (Rugby)
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Ramsay, Maj. S.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Jarvis, Sir J
Rayner, Brig. R.


Bullock, Capt. M.
Jennings, R
Reed, Sir S (Aylesbury)


Challen, C
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Channon, H.
Keeling, E. H.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Clifton-Browne, Lt.-Col. G.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Roberts, H. (Handsworth)


Conant, Maj R. J. E.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Robertson, Sir D. (Streatham)


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Langford-Holt, J.
Robinson, Wing-Comdr. Roland


Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Ropner, Col. L.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Shephard, S (Newark)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O E.
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.


Crowder, Capt. John E
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)


Cuthbert, W. N.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)


Davidson, Viscountess
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Davies, Clement (Montgomery)
Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)
Studholme, H G.


Delargy, H J.
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Dodds-Parker, A. D
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.


Dower, Lt.-Col. A. V. G. (Penrith)
Maclay, Hon. J S.
Touche, G. C.


Dravson. G B.
Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Vane, W M F.


Orewe, C.
Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)
Walker-Smith, D.


Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Maitland, Comdr. J. W.
Wheatley, Colonel M. J.


Elliot Rt. Hon. Walter
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E L.
Marlowe, A. A H
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Fraser, H. C. P (Stone)
Marples, A. E.



Fraser, Sir I (Lonsdale)
Marsden, Capt. A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Mr. Pickthorn and Mr. Henry Strauss.


Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That this House agrees with the Report of the Committee of Privileges, and in particular declares that it is inconsistent with the dignity of the House, with the duty of a Member to his constituents, and with the maintenance of the privilege of freedom of speech, for any Member of this House to enter into any contractual agreement with an outside body, controlling or limiting the Member's complete independence and freedom of action in Parliament or stipulating that he shall act in any way as the representative of such outside body in regard to any matters to be transacted in Parliament; the duty of a Member being to his constituents and to the country as a whole, rather than to any particular section thereof.

VACCINATED INFANT, HATFIELD PEVEREL (INQUIRY)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Driberg: From the consideration of its own high honour and privilege, I respectfully invite the House to direct its attention, during the half hour which remains, to the consideration of a matter of a different kind which is also properly its concern—the welfare and the misfortune of a single English family. I shall not detain the House very long with the tragic story of the infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Gooding, of Hatfield Peverel, in the County of Essex. I am 'grateful to my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Health, for waiting here till this late hour personally to reply to this Debate, and for the sympathy with the parents which he expressed when I raised this matter during Question time on 3rd:fitly. On that occasion, he promised to inquire into this case; and I think it only right, in fairness to all concerned, including the doctors, that the House and the public, and particularly, perhaps, the public in Essex, should know the result of his inquiries.
In this extremely sad case, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the facts are these. Mr. and Mrs. Gooding had a daughter born to them last year. They had waited for, and hoped for, the birth of a daughter for some 15 years, and at last they were granted this joy. The doctors who examined this child when she was born, and in the first few months of her life—three doctors in all—

including the doctor in charge of the clinic and the nurses at the clinic which Mrs. Gooding attended, all agreed that she was an extremely healthy child. They used the phrase, "A perfect baby." At the age of four months, the child was vaccinated. Apparently the vaccine did not take on the first occasion, and she was vaccinated in all three times within seven weeks. It is alleged by Mr. Gooding, the father of the child, that on the third occasion the child was vaccinated with a double injection; Mr. Gooding says that the doctor said "He had given her a double dose, and wished her luck." On the fifth day after this third vaccination, the baby was suddenly taken ill, was taken to hospital, and was found to be suffering from what was described as inflammation of the brain. Some weeks later she was returned to her home—unfortunately, blind. She is still, at the age of 13 months, blind and not developing in any way; she shows no signs of being able to walk, or talk, or take her food normally; and she suffers constantly from fits. Two children's specialists and a brain specialist have seen her, and say that there is no hope at all of her recovery.
Now, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I would like, if I may, to make it clear that I have never been an anti-vaccinationist. I have not enough medical knowledge to presume to attack or to defend any medical practice or treatment. I do not know anything about it. But I cannot help feeling, as a simple matter of cause and effect, that in this case, at any rate, it is quite inconceivable that the illness from which this child is suffering, apparently for life—or for what life remains to her—is not connected with the vaccination. It seems significant that several of the doctors concerned in this case have assumed, on first examining the child, that there was an association between the vaccination and the subsequent condition, although some have later shown some disposition to modify their earlier statements. I am told by medical colleagues among hon. Members of this House that there is a well-known condition known as post-vaccinal encephalitis which does occur, and is, so far as they know, incurable. If I may say this, and I say it with the greatest respect, the medical profession is an extremely close closed shop, and not all its members are averse from a little "mumbo-jumbo." But, despite its strong tradition of mutual aid and self-


protection, I would honestly add that, knowing personally of some of the doctors in this case, I have a high regard for their devotion and skill. It is in their interests, to clear the air, as well as for the reassurance of my constituents, that I am giving the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity of answering the questions which I now propose to put to him.
First, assuming that vaccination is desirable, is he quite certain that everything was done in this case in an orderly and hygienic way? Has he the smallest doubt about the competence of the medical authorities in mid-Essex? Secondly, on the more general issues, can he tell us anything about this condition known as post-vaccinal encephalitis? What are the statistics about it? Does it kill many babies—or adults, for that matter—or cause them to go blind, or cause the terrible sufferings which this child has undergone? How does it compare, as a menace, with smallpox itself? I am bound to say that Mr. Gooding quotes in one of his letters to me a statement circulated by an anti-vaccination organisation, which I find difficult to accept, to the effect that post-vaccinal encephalitis kills more infants than does smallpox. Either that is not true, or it is a wrong manipulation of the facts. My right hon. Friend ought to assure the public about this, or, if necessary, have a more rigorous and, perhaps, unorthodox inquiry into the whole matter. Is any research going on into this disease? Nothing which we say here tonight can console these unfortunate parents for what has happened to them; but I know, from what Mr. Gooding has told me, that they would at least like to feel that their sufferings, and the sufferings of their child, had become the occasion for the provision of some extra safeguard, however slight it may be, to prevent other people's children from suffering in this way, and to prevent the same thing from happening again.

11.24 p.m.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I am obliged to my hon. Friend for the moderate language he has used in putting what is a very tragic case before the House, and I want to take this opportunity, once more, of expressing my very deep sympathy with the parents of this child in the tragic circumstances in which they find themselves. At the same time,

if is my duty, after having made a very thorough investigation into the facts, to put to the House what has been disclosed to me. As far as one can gather from that investigation, there is no fault whatever attaching to the doctors concerned, and there was no departure from normal practice. They did exactly what is done in very large numbers of cases. There is no evidence whatever of carelessness or uncleanliness. Furthermore, I must rebut the suggestion that there were two insertions at the same time. I understand that what happened was that there were three insertions over seven weeks. The first two were unsuccessful and the third, so far as they were concerned from the point of view of inoculation, was successful. That, I understand, is not unusual: it happens quite frequently. Therefore, I think that for the sake of the doctors concerned, I must make it quite clear that there can he no imputation whatever against their professional skill, or the way in which they carried out their duties.
It is true—and here I must put before the House what I am told by those who advise me in these matters because I am as ignorant of these technical matters as my hon. Friend himself and can give to the House only the expert professional opinion—that post-vaccinal encephalitis does occur. But it is extremely rare, and very rare indeed in infants under one year of age—so rare that it amounts to one in 49,000 of inoculations. So I think it can be taken for granted that parents should not be deterred from getting their children vaccinated on account of the risk run. It would be deplorable if the inevitable publicity which has been given to this case should have the effect of frightening parents from having their children vaccinated. Although it is true that some parents do not get their children vaccinated, it is also true that if there is an outbreak of smallpox, or a suspicion of one, they rush for vaccination. One appreciates why that is so. It is also in doubt whether the baby's condition was due entirely to post-vaccinal encephalitis. The diagnosis is not quite clear. There are other possibilities which I do not wish to emphasize.
I would like to point out that when the Health Act comes into operation, compulsory vaccination will disappear; it will not be necessary for people to get exemption as they now have to do to avoid vaccination. In point of fact, we have,


as far as possible, minimised whatever dangers there might be arising from vaccination. If we were entirely immune from infection from abroad we could probably do away with vaccination entirely. But there have been cases—very serious cases—of smallpox of a quite dangerous type brought into the country from abroad, and we have had to take precautions against it. It would, in my view, he disastrous if people jumped to the conclusion, on insufficient evidence, that vaccination does not at all affect the incidence of smallpox.
Of course, I admit at once the argument that many people advance, that at the same time as vaccination has occurred, we have had a policy of development of all kinds of preventive measures, like better nutrition, effective water supplies, increased sanitation and what one distinguished man has called "the influence of the artist on the outlook of the nation."—whatever that might be—and it is very difficult for a layman to intervene in this field. All we can do is to rely upon the laws of probability, and say that it appears to us that there is some association between the comparative immunity from smallpox enjoyed by the mass of the population and the use of immunisation and inoculation. That is all we can say. Certainly it is on a better statistical foundation than could be established on the basis of particular cases and, therefore, I do hope that the publicity given to this case will not frighten parents from having their children vaccinated. Everyone must deplore the sad circumstances in which the parents found themselves. We sympathise with them very deeply indeed but we must avoid drawing general conclusions from instances of this sort.

Mr. Bowles: I would like to ask on this question of vaccination and immunisation whether the doctor carried out his job property in this particular case, using clean hands and clean instruments—because that is a matter that might give rise to a series of complaints?

Mr. Bevan: The proceedings I have been shown disclosed no evidence whatsoever of any carelessness on the part of the doctor but, of course, the courts are there if it can be shown that it is a court case. If it can be shown that there has been negligence there is the chance of redress open to the parents. All I can say

is, as far as we are concerned, there is no such evidence and I really state that in order that the publicity given to this case might not cloud the reputation of the doctors in the area concerned but any expression of mine has absolutely no value whatever as far as concerns the remedy which the parents themselves may seek.

Mr. Bowles: Are we to understand that the Minister is to inquire into every fatality of this kind?

Mr. Bevan: Surely, as the Minister of Health responsible for providing vaccination facilities, I must defend the facilities as far as I can and make sure that they are used in the proper way.

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: The right hon. Gentleman in his excellent reply has omitted to say one thing, and that is about the serum with which this child was vaccinated. It is prepared in the Government Serum Station, and, therefore, he is responsible for the production of that serum. Can he tell us whether that batch of serum, of which he will have the correct number, has been tested, and whether there was anything abnormal in the serum?

Mr. Bevan: I understand that it has been tested, and that there is no evidence at all of any abnormality. It is a perfectly normal serum. So that the fact is that we have no evidence at all of any unusual circumstances.

Mr. Somerville Hastings: May I ask my right hon. Friend if any examination has been made as to the health of the parents? Also, as to the figures he gave about the number of cases of post-vaccinal encephalitis, whether those figures are of the total vaccinations or of primary vaccinations, that is to say, of vaccination of young children? Because the evidence, I believe, in the case of primary vaccinations, that is to say, of vaccinations of young children, is that in these cases post-vaccinal encephalitis is unusual, is rare, and that the child who is vaccinated in infancy, is much less likely to be troubled by this very serious disease.

Mr. Bevan: I want it to go on record quite accurately, otherwise there will be misunderstanding. What I am informed is this: encephalitis is extremely rare in primary vaccinations of infants.

Mr. Hastings: Yes.

Mr. Bevan: That is what I think I said—in children under the age of one. It is also extremely rare in revaccinations of adolescents or adults who have been vaccinated in infancy. It is somewhat less rare in the primary vaccination of schoolchildren and adolescents who have not previously been vaccinated. But even in these patients it is uncommon. I think I gave the figures to the House. In the last year for which figures are available this infection occurred at the rate of one in 49,000 vaccinations.

Mr. Hastings: Of the total vaccinations of all classes?

Mr. Bevan: Yes. The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's question is, that there has been no investigation of the parents. I did not wish to add unnecessarily to their distress. It seems to me it is uncalled for. In the circumstances, the least said about it the better.

Wing-Commander Millington: May I put one other question to

my right hon. Friend? I followed his explanation very closely, but upon one point his answer seemed a little obscure. He was specifically asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), on the question of the number of insertions, about the possibility of the third insertion having contained, as it were, a double dose. My right hon. Friend said there were only three insertions. But he did not state whether or not there was evidence that on the third insertion there was, in fact, a double dose.

Mr. Bevan: I think I am on record—if my hon. Friend will look at HANSARD—and that I said that there was not, in fact, a double dose. There were three insertions over seven weeks, but there was no double dose at any time.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-six Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.